


The Blood of the covenant

by autieaf



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Autistic Peter Parker, Gen, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Peter Parker, There is no (infinity)war in Ba Sing Se, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 28,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22323139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autieaf/pseuds/autieaf
Summary: With the help of Peter, Tony managed to put his life together after the mess that was the civil war. But now he is going to have to house the people that broke his trust. All of this while trying to take care of a spider kid with no self-preservation instincts.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 139
Kudos: 982





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Basically after the civil war the rogues went into hiding. No ant-man and the wasp, but I will use some of it's elements.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now there's a header in this fic! It was by the lovely Lunastories. You can go check out their [Tumblr](https://lunastories.tumblr.com/post/642139957093351424/one-of-my-first-calligraphy-attempts-thank-you-to)

"And you are sure that there is nowhere else that the council is willing to send them?"

  
"Of course I'm sure, Rhodey! Do you think we would be having this conversation if there was any way I could avoid this?!" Tony snapped at his best friend. Clenching and unclenching his fist he tried to calm down.

He had been working with the UN for months trying to reform the accords. He managed to make them more about accountability for the Avengers and less about the control of enhanced individuals, as well as get Ross out of the council. He had even worked on getting pardons for the Rogue Avengers.  
Everything was working great. Except that the council decided that the only way to keep the Rogues in line while they were in temporary house arrest was by making them live in the Avengers Compound. With Tony. This sucked.

He had just recently gotten his life together again. After having the people he considered friends turn his back on him, then Siberia... Let's just say he was a mess. Not long after that Pepper broke up with him. He didn't really blame her. After Siberia he was all over the place, making increasingly self-destructive choices and cutting people off. Pepper may have broken up with him but he held no illusions, the one that killed their relationship was him. He probably would still in sinking into a depressive spiral if not for one little detail. Peter Parker.

After the colossal fuck up that was the Vulture situation, Tony decided to keep a closer eye on the kid. Just to make sure he wouldn’t get himself killed or stick his nose into things he wasn’t ready for yet. Keeping a closer eye soon turned into bi-monthly visits to the compound for lab sessions or training. At first, it was awkward and tense, but soon he started to learn more about Peter and they grew closer. He started liking the kid. So, acting as if it was no big deal, he turned their sessions into a weekly thing, and, before he knew what was happening, the kid was spending his Tuesdays and Thursdays afternoons as well as weekends with Tony. Slowly but surely, the kid made him feel less lonely and forced him to step out of his own pity party and be there to help and support another human being.

And now he would have to figure out how to fit his new life with the people that helped fuck it up in the first place. He dropped into one of the stools and held his head in his hands.

"What are you going to do about the kid?" Rhodey asks, already aware that was probably one of Tony's main concerns.

"I don't want them around Peter. I definitely do not want them to know that he is Spider-man." Tony sighed and rubbed his face "How I am going to pull this off is TBD."

Rhodey gave him a tired smile and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder in a silent show of support.

Both of them were then startled by FRIDAY's voice.

"Sir, I believe Mr. Parker is requesting entrance."

"Speak of the devil" Rhodey chuckled.

Tony rolled his stool to one of the screens nearby and pulled up the view of the front gate. He then turned to the ceiling with a confused frown.

"I don't see him, Fri"

"Look to the window on your right, Sir."

And sure enough, there on the window waving at them was Spider-man. He couldn’t help but chuckle a little bit. The kid always managed to cheer him up. He told FRIDAY to open the window and soon the teenage superhero was crawling his walls in their direction.

“Hey, Mr. Stark! Hey, Mr. Rhodey! Sorry to just drop in unannounced.”

“What are you doing here, kid? Isn’t it a school night?” Tony stopped to check his watch “And it’s waaaay past your curfew. What are you doing patrolling?”

“Well, you see Mr. Stark, I was going on my patrol as always but then I see this suspicious guy. I just knew that I had seen him before and that he was bad news, but I couldn’t quite remember why, so I decided to follow him. I got kinda distracted and ended following him for two hours, I then realized that it was past my curfew and I should probably head back home, but right when I was about to leave I see him meet with these guys for a weapons deal. And that’s when I remembered that he was one of the Vulture’s goons! I drop in, web all the bad guys up and take the weapons then call the police to come and pick them up.”

Peter told the entire story barely stopping to breathe, and gesticulating like he usually does. Tony would never admit this to anyone, but he found that completely adorable.

“That’s great and all, kid, real proud of you, but I still don’t get why you are here? Also, you should be more careful with your curfew.” He then added before Rhodey could accuse him of being a helicopter parent. “I don’t want your aunt coming after me.”

“The problem is that before I managed to web one of them up, I kinda maybe, gotshot?”

He said that last part really fast and quietly as if hoping the adults wouldn’t hear it. They did hear it, though, and Tony instantly freaked out.

“What do you mean you got shot? Why didn’t you just open with that? Jesus, Christ kid you are going to be the death of me.”

He got up and started fussing over the boy trying to find his injuries and push him towards the medbay. He passed his hands over Peter’s torso looking for the problem and making sure he didn’t have any broken ribs. Once he was satisfied that no bones were broken and found the injury based on Peter’s hiss of pain when he pressed, he quickly pressed the spider emblem on the kid’s chest and lowered the suit to his waist, to get a better look at the huge burn mark on Peter’s abdomen. For a second his vision became red with rage. How dare these people hurt his kid?! However, he knew the rage right now would not be helpful, and Peter had an unfortunate tendency to always think Tony was mad at him when the man displayed anger. So he took a deep breath and did the exercises Dr. Heath taught him. He then proceeded to grab antiseptic, painkillers and bandages. While taking care of his wound, he berated the kid for being out late and doing dangerous things without calling for help.

“… and not to mention you have school tomorrow! Have you even done your homework? You know you can’t keep skipping class, Pete.”

“I know I know. God, I can already hear Captain America’s disappointed voice telling me off for getting detention again.”

That made both Rhodey and Tony freeze. What on earth was the kid talking about? Had the kid been in contact with Rogers? He was supposed to be on the run, so that made no sense. What if he was trying to recruit Peter? Oh my god, they hadn’t even moved in yet and he was already losing his kid. Of course Peter would prefer them. Tony was fucked up and couldn’t even deal with emotions and…

“Peter, when did you talk to Steve?” Rhodey interrupted Tony’s internal freakout.

The kid looked confused and did that adorable thing that he always does where he tilts his head to the side and squints.

“What are you talking about? I’ve never even met the guy. Well, if you ignore that brief fight at the airport.”

Now it was their turn to be confused.

“Did you hit your head?” Tony asked, already passing his hands all over the kid’s skull looking for bumps or injuries. Last time the kid had a concussion he had stayed up for 36 hours wearing welder’s glasses to avoid bright lights, while his spidey sense drove him crazy.

“What? No! Why are you guys being weird?”

“We are being weird? First, you say you are going to meet Captain America, then you say you say you’ve never talked to him before!”

“The detention thing? I was talking about the PSAs” After noticing their still confused faces, Peter smiled like a kid at a Christmas “Oh my god. You’ve guys never seen the PSAs? FRIDAY, look up Captain America PSA right this instant, please.”

Tony forced him to sit down and finish getting bandaged before they could watch the videos, but as soon and he had finished wrapping up the kid’s torso and called his aunt to let her know he would stay the night, Peter grabbed both of the adults and forced them to sit down in the living room while they watched Rodgers give the most ridiculous talks ever in his stupid 2012 costume.

Tony is pretty sure that he hadn’t laughed this much is a long long time. While seeing the face of someone who he used to call a friend hurt, seeing the kid’s wide smile and giggle more than fixed his mood. Rhodey also loved seeing the man tell children to stay away from drugs, even though he had gotten his powers from taking drugs.

After seeing almost all of the videos, the pain meds started to kick in and the kid was dozing off on Tony’s shoulder. If anyone else did this he would probably push them off, especially after the kid got some drool on his shirt, but since it was Peter all he could feel was his chest bursting with fondness and love.

The next morning, Tony and Rhodey had to force the spider kid to sit down and rest. He insisted that he needed to go to school, even though just some hours ago he had had a hole in burned into his torso. It took Tony threatening to mess with Karen’s code, but he finally admitted defeat and agreed to stay in the tower. After convincing Peter to take it easy for the rest of the day, Rhodey left for some meetings while Tony and the boy had breakfast. At first, it was a little bit awkward. After the initial adrenaline of seeing him hurt faded, Tony was back to feeling anxious about the Rogue Avengers.

Lately, he had been spending most of his time at the Tower, which he bought back so he could be closer to Peter, but now, not only was he going to have to start living with the people that betrayed him, but also be miles away from his kid.

What was Peter even going to think about the Avengers? Although an angry Peter would be a problem, since their moving in was inevitable, Tony was way more worried about a happy Peter. He was always scared that the kid would realize that he was a total fuck up and leave him, and now a bunch of awesome and less fucked in the head superheroes would be meeting him. What if he liked them better than him?

“Mr. Stark, are you okay?” Peter looked at him intently while still chewing on his third grilled cheese.

“Of course, kid. Why do you ask?” He was striving for nonchalance, but the boy knew him too well.

“Cause your face is doing the thing it does when you are anxious. You know, you purse your lips and stare at a fixed point until it looks like to drill a hole there.” The kid said and imitated him, which just made him look constipated.

He chuckled nervously and ruffled the kid’s hair. “Just work stuff. Don’t worry about it. Now, since we are supposed to take it easy, how about you help me code the update for Karen?”

“Yes!” Peter jumps up in excitement just to get immediately scolded for risking rupturing his stitches.

They worked in the lab for a couple of hours. Tony listened to his kid ramble about his last patrols, then all the things that happened in school, the new tv show that he is watching and funny videos that he saw online. By lunchtime, all of his anxiety had been forgotten.

He couldn’t know it, but that was exactly Peter’s intention.


	2. Chapter 2

The days leading up to the Avengers’ arrival were passing by fast and Tony still hadn’t figured out how to tell the kid.

It’s on the Thursday of the week before the move-in date that he decided that he had procrastinated enough. They were sitting on a table in the lab working on the Iron man suit, Tony put his tools down and sighed.

“Kid, we need to talk.”

Peter immediately perked up. He had noticed that lately, his mentor had been more stressed and anxious. Even though he wanted nothing more than to ask so that he could help, he decided not to push the man. Part of him was worried that the man was mad at him or wanted to stop seeing him, but he shushed his anxiety. At this point in their relationship, he knew that those fears were irrational.

“What’s up, Mr. Stark?”

“You know that I’ve been working to get the former Avengers pardons right?”

Peter nodded a bit confused. This is not what he was expecting.

“Well, I did it.” He said unenthusiastically.

“That’s good, right?”

“Well, they are going to be in temporary house arrest. At the compound.” Before Peter could say anything else he continued “That means I’m going to have to spend more time there. Also, I’d rather they not know your secret identity, so during the weekends when we are there we should probably be more careful.”

After he said that the kid was quiet for a while fiddling with the screwdriver in his hand. Tony started to get nervous. Why was the kid not saying anything? Was he angry? Excited? Before he could get much more nervous, Peter said in a quiet voice:

“Mr. Stark, what happened between you guys?”

His heart started beating a little faster as unbidden memories of the airport fight and Siberia started rising. He tried to hide behind a smile and a little laughter.

“You were there, remember? Accords, big fight, you taking down Ant-man using a freaking Star wars reference.”

“I know it’s more than that. The way your heart beats faster whenever they are brought up, especially Captain America, your nightmares, and how you were acting a couple of months ago. I want to understand.” Peter said while staring intently at the screwdriver. He had a hard time maintaining eye contact in emotional situations.

Stark was used to closing in whenever people tried to get him to talk about his problems. He’d scoff and pretend to not know what they were talking about. If this was anyone else he would probably do that, but this was his kid. The kid that was there with him when he was at his worst and reminded him of the good things that were still out there. This was the kid that he held in the middle of the night so many times because of the nightmares that kept plaguing him. Telling anything other than the truth would have felt wrong.

“After the fight at the airport, I found out that someone was framing Barnes. I tracked Rogers and his buddy to try and help. When I got there I found out the Winter Soldier was the one responsible for the death of my parents” His voice cracked a little and he fought against the lump in his throat. “Rogers knew about it. He knew all along and he never told me. I freak out and go for Barnes. We started fighting and next thing I know I’m getting the shit beat out of me by the two of them and I’m on the ground and Rogers is on top of me and he is bringing his shield down and I think I’m about to die. He crushes the arc reactor and my suit is dead. Then” He pauses “.Then he leaves. He just leaves me there.”

He started getting more frantic as he spoke, but the last sentence was a barely audible whisper. He looks up and suddenly he feels strong arms wrapped around his chest and a mop of brown curls are in his face. He hugs the kid back and noticed the hiccupping movements of his back. The kid was crying.

“I’m so sorry. I’m here for you.”

He thinks his chest is about to burst when the kid says that. They stay like that for a couple of minutes, until Tony feels like he can’t take this anymore.

“Argh. That’s enough emotions for one day. I’m pretty sure I’m allergic to those.” He chuckles awkwardly and starts playing with a wrench from one of the worktables, avoiding eye contact.

Peter immediately understands that his mentor is looking for some distraction. He knows him enough to know that he usually gets drained after emotional conversations.

“So, I’ve been practicing the song that you taught me using my school’s music room, and I think that I’m way better now. Wanna hear?”

“I’d love that.” And even though his smile is a little sad, it’s still genuine.

After learning about how much the kid liked music, Tony started teaching him how to play the piano. At first, it was hard, it reminded him too much of his mother, but soon it became a tradition of theirs. Whenever one of them was having a bad day, they’d just sit down in front of the piano and play for hours.

When Tony was younger, before his parents died, he always imagined teaching his kid how to play it, and although he would probably never admit it, teaching Peter made that true. It also helped that the kid was a natural.

So that’s how they spent the rest of the day, sitting together on the bench and playing one of his mother’s favorite songs, with Peter occasionally singing along. The next day would come and they would have to talk about the Rogues and secret identities and how to balance all of that with their new reality, but today, they just sit and play piano together. Their little family tradition, even though they were both a little scared of admitting that this was a family.

****

Peter opened the door to his apartment and before he even took off his shoes he was loudly announcing his presence.

“Aunt May! I’m home!”

Her head peeked out the kitchen door and as soon as her eyes reached his she smiled at him with so much love. She was still in her work clothes and with her hair in a bun like she normally was by the time Peter got home from the internship, but this time her hands were covered in flour and there seemed to be a little bit of batter on her cheek.

“Hey, honey. I found this croissant recipe online today. Wanna help me make it?”

Neither of them could really cook, the chef of the house was his Uncle Ben, but ever since his passing they would occasionally try. Even though their results were never stellar, they enjoyed spending time together talking and doing something that reminded them of the missing part of their little family.

“I’d love to.”

Kicking his shoes off and leaving his backpack by the couch, Peter joined his aunt. For a couple of minutes, they enjoyed an amicable silence and then started telling each other about their days. May had a good day at work, Sally brought everyone cookies and this little girl puked on the shoes of a doctor that May doesn’t like.

“And how was your internship, baby?”

He took his time to answer trying to roll the dough like the recipe instructed. He couldn’t really tell her about the newly pardoned avengers because that wasn’t public information yet and Mr. Stark asked him to not talk about it with anyone which made him uneasy. After she discovered that he was Spider-man their relationship was rocky for a little bit, partially because she worried about him, but also because she felt hurt that he had kept such a big secret. Peter tried to keep her in the loop ever since.

“It was good. Mr. Stark has been a bit stressed, but we talked and I think he feels better now.”

She gave me a proud and fond smile.

“Stark is a lucky man to have you in his corner” Peter scrunched his eyebrows in confusion, but before he could protest, she continued “I’m happy that you two have each other.”

Peter opened his mouth to speak then closed it a couple of times. After some time, he said softly:

“Yeah, me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like it! Feel free to leave a comment with ideas or thoughts


	3. Chapter 3

Peter woke up to his alarm blaring and reminding him that he had less than 40 minutes to shower and get ready for school. For the first 20 minutes since his waking up, he was too busy trying not to fall asleep in the middle of brushing his teeth or getting into the subway to be anxious, but as soon as he sat down for his first period it all came crashing down and he had to hold back a gasp. Today was the day the Rogues would be moving into the compound.

He and Tony had had a long conversation about it after their little music session. The plan was for things to stay basically the same, they would meet twice a week at the Tower, and during the weekends when they normally spent their time at the compound, Peter would stay at the lab or Tony’s floor to avoid meeting any Avengers. Tony had said he didn’t want Peter around them, and the boy couldn’t help but agree. They were his heroes for a lot of his life, but just the image of Captain America on top of Mr. Stark bringing his shield down was enough to fill him with anger and fear.

The man had almost killed the person that Peter loved like a father. Peter would probably not be forgiving him any time soon.

Peter was snapped out of his musings by the teacher calling his name and asking him the solution for the problem that he had just explained. He had no idea what the teacher was talking about since he was busy freaking out during most of the class, but a quick peek at the board and he figured out the answer. The teacher was visibly surprised by that, he had probably only called him because he wasn’t paying attention.

The rest of the day passed like that, with Peter zoning out worried about his mentor and people trying to get him to focus. Only after the third time that Ned called his name during lunch did he look up.

“Dude, why are you so distracted today? Does it have to do with, you know?” Ned made the web-shooting hand gesture.

“No. I mean, kind of. But it’s classified.” That was one of Mr. Stark’s rules. He couldn’t tell anyone about the Rogues, not even his guy in the chair. Even though keeping secrets from his friend made him uncomfortable, he understood that this was a matter of national security and that Mr. Stark was trusting him to be discreet.

Ned was visibly disappointed and tried to get some more information out of him, but Peter just ignored him and went back to wondering how Mr. Stark was doing. Should he call him? No, he was probably busy anyway. Maybe he could just text him. But what would he even say? If he asked him how he was doing the man would probably try to act indifferent and pretend that everything was fine. He could try to just strike up a random conversation to distract him from the current anxiety-inducing situation that he was facing, but what if he was interrupting something important?

Peter settled on texting him a meme. It could be a distraction and the man could choose to start a conversation or just send a snappy reply. After choosing a meme (a vine reference, because he is a true gen Z) he went back to eating his disgusting cafeteria food.

\---

The Avengers were waiting for the plane to land on the compound. After a year and a half of being on the run, they were more than a little excited to be home. Sure, they were on house arrest, but still, they were home.

“So, do you think are rooms are still the same? Or did someone throw our shit out?” Sam asked, suddenly worried about redwing. He hoped no one has messed with his drone.

“I don’t think Tony would just throw our things away,” Steve said with a frown.

“Well, you all did run away and became fugitives against the laws that he was defending…” Scott says unhelpfully. He wasn’t really all that concerned since he wasn’t even an Avenger before the whole thing in Germany.

“He can’t be mad about that. He got us pardons and is having us stay at the compound. He wouldn’t do that unless he was okay with us.” Most of them nod their agreement with Clint.

Their conversation stops once they notice that the plane has begun to land. While Sam, Clint, and Scott look excited and couldn’t hold still, Steve and Wanda were calmer but still visibly happy. Natasha was the only one that looked wary. She knew Tony longer than any of the others, and she wasn’t so sure things would be as easy as her teammates seemed to think. The man held grudges and they had fought him.

The plane landed and the team walked out onto the grass in front of the compound. Waiting outside were Stark and Colonel Rhodes. Even though they weren’t wearing their armor they were very clearly on guard, with their backs straight and their shoulders tense. Not exactly a warm welcome, but a little awkwardness was to be expected. Tony was wearing an expensive three-piece suit and sunglasses, and his mouth was a thin line.

“There are my favorite criminals.” He says, voice dripping with sarcasm and a cold smile. “So pay attention because I’m only going to say this once. Just because you are not wearing ankle monitors does not mean you are not under house arrest. The council chose to house you in the compound because here FRIDAY can and will monitor your every move, so don’t get any ideas. Your rooms are the same ones as before and your bug friend can stay in the empty room next to Wilson. You are not allowed on my floor or the lab. Do not test me on this. You know the way, so you can see yourselves in. See you around, I guess.”

After his speech, he and the Colonel walked into the building. For a couple of seconds, the team was in stunned silence.

“I don’t know about you guys, but this was not what I was expecting,” Sam said

“Considering how he apparently wasn’t the one to invite us back, I guess he isn’t okay with us.”

Natasha is the first one to move, walking across the landing area and entering the compound, going towards her old room. Even though she was not surprised that he was upset, it still made her feel uncomfortably cold inside. The others follow her, now all feeling a bit uncertain about being back.

\---

“Well, that didn’t go too bad,” Rhodey said, trying to lighten the mood once they were back in Tony’s floor.

Tony just leans against a wall with a hand in his chest trying to calm his breathing. From the second his eyes landed on Rogers he could feel a panic attack creeping in.

Since he was told about their move-in, his nightmares about Siberia increased and seeing him standing there just brought all those dreams of a shield being brought down on his chest back. His hands start feeling numb as he began to hyperventilate. Rhodey moved closer to him and puts a hand on his shoulder, hoping to comfort his friend.

His phone rang and he ignored it.

“Boss, I think you should check your phone.”

“Is it urgent? Cause unless the world is ending right now, I really don’t care.”

“It’s not urgent. It’s from Peter.”

For a second he panics until he realizes that the kid is still in school and if he was injured he would have received a notification. He looks at it and it’s one of those stupid memes that the kid is so fond of. He can’t help the smile that appears on his face. With some help from Rhodey, he gets his breathing under control.

He looks up to see Rhodey smirking.

“Such a dad.” He said before walking away to grab something from the kitchen, giving him space to recover.

_Thanks, kid_ He texted back.

Somehow his kid just knew what he needed. He follows Rhodey into the kitchen. He could do this. He’s got Rhodey and Happy and Peter to help him along. Even if things weren’t okay yet, he knew he wouldn’t be alone in fighting it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to thank my wonderful beta, Hanna! Thanks for all the help.

Peter woke up and, for a second, just laid in bed, wishing he didn’t have to get up. Then he realized it was Tuesday. With a smile on his face, he jumped off the bed and went to get ready for school. Today was lab day. That meant seeing Mr. Stark, tinkering with the suits, eating to his little spider-heart’s content, and watching TV cuddled on the couch. Lab days were his favorite days.

On top of his usual lab day excitement was the additional anxiety about the Avengers. Had everything turned out okay? He and Mr. Stark had talked a little bit last night, but he knew his mentor had a tendency to lie and pretend that everything was fine, and unless Peter could see his face, he wouldn’t know if he really was okay.

Ned had to keep nudging him in the arm to get him to pay attention in class, but it was a lost cause. He knew he could catch up later, anyway, and he already knew all that the science teachers were saying. Mr. Stark was a great teacher.

Once school was out, he ran down the steps, not even glancing as Flash screamed an insult at him; all he could think was _get to Happy, go to the tower_. He looked around for a little bit until he spotted the sleek black car that Happy always used to pick him up.

“Hey, Happy! Nice to see you!” Peter said with all of his usual enthusiasm. As soon as the door was closed and he knew his classmates couldn’t see him, he started flapping his arm in excitement.

Happy responded with only a grunt and a nod, but when the kid had entered the car and couldn’t see him anymore, he smiled a little bit. He would never admit it, but he had a bit of a soft spot for the kid.

During the drive, Happy noticed that Peter seemed extra fidgety today and was way too quiet. For Peter’s standards, at least. After knowing the kid for almost a year, he knew that meant he was nervous.

“Why the nervousness? Fail some test or something?” he asked, trying to act like he didn’t care.

“Oh, no. I’m just a bit worried about Mr. Stark and the whole Rogue Avengers situation. I know he doesn’t want them there, and I don’t think I really trust them.”

“Me either, kid. But Boss can handle himself, and Rhodey is there to make sure nothing bad happens. Don’t worry about it.”

Through the rear-view mirror, Happy could see the kid give him a small smile, but he still didn’t look convinced. To be fair, neither was Happy, but there was nothing to be done.

*

Sitting in the tower, waiting for them was Tony. Even though he had had another Siberia nightmare last night, the man was still excited about lab day with the Spider-kid. Tony couldn’t stay still, so he started working on a random project. Next thing he knew, he was designing a new fidget cube for the kid. Peter used to have a cheap one, but one day during a sensory overload, he forgot to take his super-strength into account and accidentally destroyed it, which sent him into a meltdown that took two hours to calm down. So now Tony was designing one that could hopefully withstand Peter’s strength.

Two hours later, and he had one hundred percent gotten carried away with it and made one that could connect to Karen and give alerts if Peter seemed to be in distress, could contact Tony or May if sensory overload or a meltdown happened, as well as a bunch of functions that took into consideration the kid’s most common stims. He was almost done fixing a glitch on the toy when he got the text from Happy, letting him know that they were on their way.

He hid everything relating to his newest project (he wanted it to be a surprise) and went to the kitchen to get a snack ready for them. Ten minutes later, the elevator door opened, and a teenager with messy brown curls came running out of it. He barrelled Tony into a hug that a year ago would have made the man bristle but now just filled him with joy.

After he was done with the hug, Peter went to put down his backpack and jacket and started rambling about his school day. Tony listened with fondness while the kid went into way too much detail about something funny that happened with MJ in history class.

Soon they moved to the lab, and the boy’s ramblings quieted as he became progressively more focused on making taser webs. FRIDAY was playing their playlist softly while they worked. It had Tony’s usual music -- Black Sabbath and heavy metal in general -- but occasionally, some of Peter’s songs -- some soft alternative and pop -- were played as well.

Tony couldn’t hide his confusion. He was sure that Peter would have a million questions about everything that had happened with the Rogues yesterday, but so far, he hadn’t even mentioned them. They had been in the workshop for two hours before Tony’s curiosity got the best of him.

“Aren’t you curious about what happened yesterday? You haven’t really asked any questions, and that’s not really your style.”

“Oh, I’m dying to know, but I don’t want you to talk about it unless you want to.” 

Tony took a second to appreciate what a great kid Peter was before turning around to stare at the repulsion glove that he was currently working on.

“It was fine, I guess. I was only with them for a total of five minutes to tell them the rules, then I went to my floor to avoid them. No fights yet.”

“I’m glad everything worked out,” Peter said with a small smile.

“So, how are those webs coming along?”

Peter understood that the man was letting him know that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore and went on a lengthy explanation of the current problem that he was having with the webs. They brainstormed some solutions for a while, and then Peter wanted to help him with his Iron Man suit.

They worked for hours until the numbers on Peter’s calculations started to blur together.

“I think if I have to stare at this equation for one more second, I might faint.”

Tony looked at his watch before chuckling.

“No wonder. We’ve been working for five hours. What do you say we watch a movie before you go home?”

Peter nodded with enthusiasm, and they cleaned up their work tables before heading up. With way too many blankets and a bowl of popcorn, they settled down on the couch. The kid cuddled into his side, and he kept one hand holding the popcorn bowl and the other playing with the boy’s curls. They started watching some random animated movie that Peter had chosen.

Tony was the most relaxed he had been in days. While listening to the chatter on the tv and his kid’s breathing, he felt his anxiety drain away. His eyelids started to feel heavier and heavier until he fell asleep, resting his head on top of Peter’s.

*

Peter was almost asleep by the time the movie was over. When the credits started rolling, and he went to stand up, noticed that Mr. Stark wasn’t getting up. In fact, he hadn’t moved in quite a while.

“Mr. Stark? The movie is over.” The man didn’t say anything, and Peter noticed that he was fast asleep. For a second, he thought about waking him up, but he knew he hadn’t been sleeping well lately. He could see the bags under his eyes and the sort of manic energy that he had had all day, the type he would get after ingesting way too much caffeine.

So Peter carefully lifted himself off the couch so he wouldn’t jostle the man too much and laid him horizontally on the sofa to make sure he wouldn’t have neck or back pains the next morning. After covering him with a blanket and slipping a pillow under his head, he wrote a note and put it on the coffee table. 

_Hey, Mister Stark!_

_I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t say goodbye, you looked like you could use some rest. Today was really fun, so thank you!_

_See you Thursday!_

_-Peter :)_

He grabbed his things and got ready to leave. When he was by the elevator, however, he thought of something.

“Hey, FRIDAY? Can you make sure that nothing disturbs Mr. Stark? Unless it’s an emergency.”

“Of course, Peter. Goodnight.”

“Night, Fri.”

*

Tony woke up, and at first, all he could feel was relief. No nightmares this time. Then, as his brain started waking up too, he was confused. He wasn’t in his bed. He was on the… couch? Why had he fallen asleep here? Then last night became clearer. Oh, yeah; he had been watching movies with Peter. When he realized that the boy must have put the blanket on him as well as grabbed him a pillow, he felt a bit embarrassed but mostly just happy and fond. After all, Peter had seen him drunk and passed out in a pool of his own vomit once (not his proudest moment); there was not really any point in being embarrassed about falling asleep next to him.

He smiled to himself when he saw the kid’s note, and his smile only grew once he noticed the time. Eight full hours of sleep. He hadn’t slept that well in a while. His smile soured when he realized that he should probably go back to the compound. Argh. At least he would see the kid again tomorrow.

After he flew back to the compound, he went to his lab. No, he wasn’t hiding from the Rogues. Of course not. Since he didn’t have any critical projects for Stark Industries, he played around for a couple of hours without any specific goal. He worked a bit more on the kid’s fidget cube, worked on some designs for a new weapons system in his suit, and made some minor upgrades to one of Rhodey’s backup leg braces.

When the afternoon rolled around, he got a text from Peter.

_Hey, is my t-shirt with the amino acid joke over there? I can’t find it anywhere, and it’s my favorite!!_

“Hey, Fri? Did the kid forget one of his shirts at the tower?”

“No, boss.” He was about to text back and say that he didn’t have it when FRIDAY continued. “But, I do believe he left the one he is referring to here at the compound.”

“Oh, where is it?”

*

The team was together in the common room. Clint, Sam, and Scott were playing video games while Wanda and Vision watched them. Steve made some popcorn for them, and Natasha read quietly in the corner. She would occasionally look up from her book to insult their skills.

The elevator door opened, and Stark stepped out. He was on his phone and didn’t glance up until he was in the middle of the room. Stark looked around without acknowledging their presence. With a frown on his face, he looked up to the ceiling.

“Where is it?”

Before any of them could ask what he meant, FRIDAY answered, “On the couch, underneath the red blanket, Boss.”

He walked to the couch and threw the blanket aside. Underneath it was a white t-shirt with a drawing of a chemical compound on it. On it was written _what do you call an acid with an attitude? A-mean-oh acid._ Some of them didn’t understand the joke, and of those who did, only Scott laughed. With a triumphant smile, Stark wrote something on his phone and made a move to leave. Before he could though, Steve spoke up.

“Don’t you want to join us?”

“Not particularly, no,” he replied coolly. He turned to Natasha and said, “The one on the third floor has what you want. You can ask FRIDAY and she will show you the way.”

She thanked him, and with a quick nod, he left. Natasha had asked for a training room with equipment for her to use. She knew Stark was still angry with her for switching sides, but she was trying her best to mend the friendship. They had known each other the longest, after all.

“Well, that wasn’t awkward at all,” Scott said, not having much of a filter.

“Who knew Stark had a secret stash of stupid science T-shirts?” Sam added.

“The shirt obviously doesn’t belong to Stark,” Clint corrected, and then noticed that all of the non-spy people seemed confused by his statement. “It is way too small to be his. Also, not his style and the shirt is clearly old. If it was Stark’s, he would have gotten a newer one by now. Not to mention that his reaction to finding the shirt was to text someone. Probably the owner.”

Most of the others seemed convinced by this and went back to their previous activities, but Steve seemed confused.

“Who does the shirt belong to, then?” He was only met with a couple of shrugs and some mumbling of _no clue, man._

*

“Did you find your shirt, Honey?” May asked from the kitchen. She was trying to make dinner while Peter worked on his homework.

“Yeah! I left it at the compound,” he yelled back, not looking up from his chemistry worksheet. He knew all this already. It was ridiculously easy for him. That was probably why he couldn’t make himself focus on the task. His brain had apparently decided to vacate the premises in his hour of need. With a loud groan, he let his head fall and hit the desk.

“Having a hard time?”

He looked up to see Aunt May standing by his door. His reply was an even more dramatic groan, but this time instead of letting his head fall forward, he threw it back and stared at the ceiling as if it would have the answers to his problems. Or maybe a new brain.

She chuckled at his antics and told him to take a break and go set the table.

After dinner, he went on patrol. Much like his homework, patrol was boring that day. He stopped a couple of muggings, walked a drunk girl home, and gave directions to a couple of teenagers coming back from a party. He went back home and tried to trick his brain into doing his chemistry problems by having a cookie after each correct answer. It sort of worked. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed it. Please leave a comment with your thoughts.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so late! Life is a mess

“I stopped a mugging yesterday, and the guy was all like _I’ll kill you spider-man!_ And then I was all like _I’m a bad bitch, you can’t kill me._ And he was so confused! It was hilarious, Mr. Stark. ”

Tony looked at the holographic projector that he was currently fixing to hide his smile. He would probably never really understand the kid’s obsession with those internet videos, but he would be lying if he said he didn’t find it endearing. Tony listened to Peter tell him about his day while he worked. The kid was sitting on the ceiling, reassembling one of his webshooters while he talked. He had broken it by trying a new web formula, the cartridge had exploded inside it, and the webbing got all over the internal wiring.

After he was done fixing the device, he put it on and webbed up one of Tony’s tools while the man was distracted. Without looking away from the projector, he reached for the screwdriver only to learn that it was stuck to the table. He looked up at Peter with an incredibly unamused expression. That made the kid burst out laughing so hard he dropped from the ceiling.

“Will you stop messing around, Underoos? Some of us have work to do.” He tried to sound stern even though he was more fond than actually upset.

The kid didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed. Still giggling, he reached for the web dissolvent and freed the tool. Tony continued working on fixing the projector, this time with Peter’s help.

They worked for half an hour until FRIDAY interrupted them.

“Boss, Ms. Potts is calling you.”

He sighed. Working with your ex created some pretty awkward situations. “Put her through, Fri.”

She had called to update him on some of his Stark industries' duties. A board meeting he was required to attend on Monday and a situation that had gone wrong on the R&D department that he should probably look into.

Talking to Pepper always made him feel like there was a rock in his stomach. A reminder of what he lost, his first real relationship, someone that was there since the beginning, someone he had driven away.

Realizing that he had been staring at the wrench in his hand without moving for longer than was probably socially acceptable, he shook his head to clear his thoughts.

“So, do you have any ideas on how to improve this, Pete?” The kid’s eyes shone with excitement while he rattled off a bunch of ideas. Pepper was also a reminder that he couldn’t make the same mistake again. He has already fucked up at the beginning of their relationship, ignoring Peter and essentially leaving him to his own devices. Tony couldn’t drive the kid away too.

They continued to work together for one hour until they heard a knock on the door. With a smile, Rhodey walked into the lab.

“How are my two favorite nerds doing?”

“Hey, Mister Rhodes! I’m doing good. How are you?”

“I’m great, Pete, thanks for asking. I have to steal Tony for a second, but I’ll come back, and you and I can catch up.”

Tony frowned, confused at the interruption, but followed Rhodey out of the lab and into the kitchen.

“What’s wrong? You wouldn’t have come all the way here unless you had bad news.”

His friend sighed and dragged his hand over his face.

“So apparently, the council decided that the Avengers should have training sessions to make sure we can still fight well together. So now we have mandatory training sessions weekly.”

Tony clenched and unclenched his fist, trying to calm down. His plan was to avoid his former teammates as much as possible, and now he was going to have to endure them for hours every week.

“Come on, Tones. Take a deep breath. Freaking out about this is not going to change anything, go to the lab, and go have fun with my nephew. The sessions only start in three weeks.”

“Nephew?” Tony raised an eyebrow but couldn’t stop a smile tugging at his lips. No matter what he said, someone referring to Peter as his son would always make him happy.

“Don’t bother trying to deny it. Come on, I want to see the Spider-kid.”

They walked together back into the lab only to find Peter singing and dancing while drawing the schematics. It was absolutely hilarious. Rhodey was laughing so hard he was bent over, clutching his stomach.

Realizing that he had an audience, Peter turned around to see the two men in the doorway and blushed profusely. Deciding that the best course of action was pretending this never happened, he turned around and continued working, trying to ignore the sound of laughter.

“I had no idea you had such great moves, Pete!” Rhodey says, still chuckling a bit.

“Don’t you have anything better to do than make fun of teenagers?” Peter tried to sound angry, but he was still too embarrassed for his voice to sound as stern as he wanted.

“Nope! I’m free all afternoon, so I can spend whole hours just making fun of you two nerds.”

“Oh, joy.” Tony’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

Tony went back to working on his project, but he could still hear his friend talking to Peter. The kid told him about all the funny stories from his patrols and the things that he and his nerd friend did since the last time they had talked. Tony bent down closer to his gauntlet to hide the fond smile that took over his face while the boy told Rhodey about this robot spider that he had made with legos.

*

Some weeks before, Peter had given him an iron man-themed foam ball. It was the wrong shade of red, and the drawing of his mask was hideous. Tony took it everywhere he went. He was clutching it tightly while trying to keep his breathing steady. His knuckles were white, and cracks were appearing in the paint of the toy by the time that Happy texted him, saying they were 10 minutes away from the compound.

This would be the first time that Peter and the Rogues would be in the compound at the same time, and Tony was anxious about it. If everything went right, they wouldn’t cross paths. But when do things ever go right for him? Peter would stay on his floor the entire weekend, and FRIDAY had express instructions to not let them on his personal floor. But a level 5 alarm could override those instructions or a malware in the system or a live model decoy impersonating him could trick FRIDAY or…

The elevator opened, and suddenly he had his arms full of teenager. It took him slightly longer than normal to respond to the hug, alerting Peter of his nervous state.

Peter took a step back and furrowed his eyebrows. He was about to ask what was wrong when he looked down and noticed a red sphere in his mentor’s hand.

“Hey! You kept the gift!”

Tony was confused for a second until he realized what the kid was talking about. He snorted and tossed the ball in the air a couple of times.

“Of course, I did. Now, let’s go. I’ve been meaning to teach you some battle strategy for a while, and I guess there is no time like the present.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading


	6. Chapter 6

There are plenty of times when Peter hates the fact that he has super-senses. As an autistic person, it’s not like he had never experienced the horror and pain of a sensory overload, but a sensory overload when one possesses super-senses it’s a whole other level of hell. Not to mention that he lived in New York and had to frequently use its public transit. Lots of things can be said about New York’s subway, but “pleasant smelling” is not one of them. But in moments like the one that made him jump out of bed, suddenly awake is one of the reasons why he is still grateful for his powers.

A couple of seconds after he woke up, he was unsure of what had woken him, but then he heard it. In the room next to him, there was the sound of rapid and irregular breathing, and if he focused just a little bit more, he could hear the _thud-thud_ of a heart beating way faster than average. Tony was having a nightmare.

This was not the first time the boy had been present for one of his mentor’s nightmares. The first time happened when Peter stayed overnight at the compound for the first time. He had been awakened by Mr. Stark’s screams. He ran to the man’s room, expecting to see an intruder only to see him lying in his bed, gripping the sheets so tightly that a rip had appeared. Over time, not only was Peter better equipped to deal with them and to help Mr. Stark, but he also got better at listening for them.

Peter rushed to the older man’s room, and, after having turned on the lights to the dimmest possible setting, he kneeled by the bed and tried to wake him up.

“Mr. Stark? You are dreaming. Can you please wake up?”

Seeing Mr. Stark like this always made Peter feel as if there was a boulder on his chest, and even though part of him wanted to cry, he pushed that down and focused on helping his mentor.

Peter knew from past experiences that trying to shake the man awake or touch him while he was still in the nightmare was not a good idea. More than once, he had ended up having to dodge a punch or jump out of the way from a suit trying to attach itself to Mr. Stark after the man was woken up too suddenly. It still didn’t make it any easier to just stand there and see the man trash around the covers.

“Mr. Stark, it’s Peter. Come on, you need to wake up!”

Tony sat up and looked around frantically for the source of danger. Blood was pounding in his ears, and he could feel the adrenaline pumping in his veins, looking around all he saw was his dark room. As his memories started to pour back into his mind, and he saw Peter kneeling, he realized what had happened. Another nightmare.

He rubbed the sleep off his eyes and tried to smile reassuringly, but if Peter’s concerned face was anything to go by, he had missed by a mile.

“You haven’t had one this bad in a while,” the kid said, sitting next to him in the bed, “Wanna talk about it?”

Peter was wrong, Tony had never had a nightmare this bad. It started off as most of his Siberia ones did, he was in a dark tunnel, Rogers and Barnes walked towards him, and he couldn’t move away. Then the fighting would start, and the next thing he knew, he was on the ground, and both men were hitting him. When the captain raised his shield, Tony was now watching from above, and it was no longer him in the ground, but Peter. He woke up after the shield came down on the boy’s chest.

Tony just shook his head no. He couldn’t talk just yet. 

“You know, there’s this tv show that MJ has been telling me to watch for ages, but I hadn’t found the time. Want to check it out?”

Tony huffed out a laugh. This kid had the largest heart of anyone he had ever known. He put his arm around Peter’s shoulders and guided him towards the tv.

“Sounds great, kiddo.”

*

Peter woke with the sun hitting him in the face, and for a second, he wanted to kill it. He was too sleepy to understand that “killing the sun” was not only impossible but also non-sensical. In his defense, Peter had gotten approximately 3 hours of sleep. He and Mr. Stark spent most of the night watching a weird and confusing show, that although both of them were geniuses, they could not understand. Eventually, exhaustion took over, and they fell asleep piled together on the couch.

Peter wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, but he was too hungry to be able to relax. He got up from the couch carefully, trying his best not to wake Mr. Stark up, and went to the kitchen grumbling about stupid super-metabolism.

*

Clint was watching the news like he usually did in the mornings when he heard some sounds coming from the kitchen. He raised his head and saw a brunette teenager rummaging through the cabinets.

Being as quiet as possible, Clint picked up his phone and texted Nat.

_Come to the living room._

**why**

_Just do it. And be quiet._

Not even a full minute had passed when Natasha appeared, and her face made it clear that she wasn’t happy being called this early in the morning.

“What was so important that you couldn’t have just texted me?”

He touched his finger to his lips and signaled for her to be quiet, then nodded towards the kitchen. The boy had apparently found what he was looking for and was now sitting on the counter, eating cereal straight from the box.

“Huh”

“Exactly. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Clint asked.

“That this floor is restricted to Avengers, family, and high-level employees, and unless Stark has been hiring in a kindergarten, the boy has to be the child of someone from the team?”

“Actually, I was thinking that Stark’s kid has terrible taste in cereal, but close enough.”

Natasha rolled her eyes at Clint’s terrible attempt at humor but had to concede that he was right. Not about the cereal, but about the child being Stark’s. He was the right age, they had a similar appearance, and Stark is probably the only one that could hide a secret from her for this long.

Natasha opened her mouth to ask Clint if they should introduce themselves when Scott appeared behind them.

“What are we looking at?”

The boy looked up and noticed them.

*

In Peter’s defense, he was sleep-deprived. He woke up so hungry and tired that he completely forgot about the fact that he was not supposed to leave Mr. Stark’s floor. When he heard some voices coming from the living room, he looked up to find Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Ant-Man all looking at him.

They all stared at each other in silence for some seconds, Peter still with his mouth full of Lucky Charms until Ant-Man broke the silence once more.

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced yet. Hi, I’m Scott.”

Even though Peter was internally freaking out over the fact that he had been seen by the Rogues on his second day at the compound, despite Mr. Stark telling him that he didn’t want that, Aunt May raised him to be polite, so he shook Ant-Man’s hand.

“I’m Clint,” Hawkeye smiled

Black Widow smiled and wiggled her fingers.

Before Peter could stop his internal freakout, the elevator opened, and Captain America and the Falcon stepped out.

*

Tony was woken up on the couch for the second time this week. His back hurt and his neck was sore, but he couldn’t make himself care about any of this because of what had woken him.

“ _Boss, Peter needs you in the kitchen._ ”

He jumped up and ran to the kitchen only to find it empty. Before he could ask FRIDAY what was going on, she clarified.

“ _The communal one._ ”

His heart stopped for a second when he realized that the kid was on the same floor as the Rogues. He ran to the elevator, and FRIDAY took him to the common floor. He was still debating whether to call his suit or not when the doors opened.

Peter was in the middle of the kitchen, holding a box of Lucky Charms like a shield. Surrounding him were Barton, Romanoff, Lang, Wilson, and Rogers. His breath caught at seeing his kid so close to them, but before, he could properly panic, he strode to the kitchen and said:

“What the hell is going on here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it!


	7. Chapter 7

“What the hell is going on here?”

All heads turned around to see Tony enter the room. While Barton and Romanoff saw the parental protectiveness in Tony’s eyes and stepped away from Peter, Steve, who had been apprehensive at seeing a strange teenager in the kitchen, misinterpreted Tony’s behavior for anger at the intruder.

“Me and Sam just came back from our run and saw this young man sitting in the kitchen. Are you lost, son?”

Tony clenched his fists, seeing Rogers so close to his kid. His nightmare was still fresh in his mind. His plan was for them to not meet at all, but since that was no longer an option, he had to think fast on his feet. Thankfully being raised in the spotlight and having to come up with cover stories for his escapades made him a master at improvisation.

“Not what I was talking about, Capsicle,” Tony replied coolly, “I want to know why you all are bothering my intern.”

Sam snorted unattractively.

“Really, Stark? Intern? That’s what you are going with?”

Clint chuckled with him. Steve just looked between the two men confused.

“I have no idea what you are talking about, Birdbrain.” Tony waved Peter forward. “Let’s go, kiddo. We got lots of work.” 

The two of them entered the elevator and left the Rogues. The second the elevator doors closed, the boy started rambling, but Tony was too hyped up on adrenaline to be able to really listen. He started checking Peter for injuries, moving him from side to side, and even checking his ribs. Rationally, Tony knew that there was no way for his former teammates to have hurt Peter without FRIDAY warning him, but he still wouldn’t be able to calm down until he checked.

Satisfied that the kid was fine, Tony was finally able to take a deep breath. Calmer, he could now listen to what Peter was saying.

“… sorry, Mr. Stark, it was just that the good cereal is always in the communal kitchen, and I forgot about the team, and I was just so hungry and tired. I’m really, really sorry. I know you didn’t want me meeting them, and…”

Tony waved his arms to stop the rambling.

“Kid kid! Calm down. It’s okay. Yes, I didn’t want them to meet you, but we can just go with the intern cover story. Nothing has to change. Also, this isn’t your fault.”

He could see that the kid was still pretty stressed out, with his breathing too fast and his eyes getting a bit red the way they always did when he was trying not to cry.

“How about we go play some music, huh? There is this duet I’ve been waiting to try.”

“Yeah, that sounds great.”

*

“I didn’t think interns would be allowed on this floor,” Steve says, with his eyebrows drawn in confusion.

Clint scoffs, and Sam chuckles. Now that whatever was happening is no longer happening, Scott starts combing through the cupboards looking for breakfast, while Natasha goes to sit down in the living room.

“Seriously, Steve? You really think Tony Stark ‘Mr. I’m-too-smart-for-you-mortals’ would have a teenager as an intern? Stark Industries doesn’t even hire undergraduate students for its internship programs, only grad students.”

At that, Scott looks up from his hunt.

“Why the hell do you know that?” Clint just shrugs in response

“If he’s not an intern, then what is he doing here? And why would Tony say that he is one?” Steve argues.

“I can’t believe that your first thought seeing a brown-haired teenager in the house of notorious playboy Tony Stark is not ‘this is his illegitimate child’” Sam laughs at him.

Steve looked indignant at the idea.

“Tony wouldn’t keep a secret like that from us.”

“I did.” Clint raises an eyebrow. Steve seems to be the only one that doesn’t think that the pair are father and son. Well, maybe Scott doesn’t either, Clint has no idea since the man seems content not participating in the discussion.

“You know better than most that we kept secrets from each other, Steve,” Natasha adds. Suddenly the atmosphere of the room became tense. Natasha was one of the few that knew about the motivation for the fight in Siberia.

Steve cleared his throat guiltily. Although everyone else was confused at the exchange, they decided not to press, things were awkward enough as it is.

*

Tony managed to avoid discussing Peter with his other teammates for a while. Unfortunately, his luck ran out when the first mandatory training session rolled around. The only ones that knew about Peter and Spider-man were Rhodey and Vision, and Tony was not looking to expand that list.

“So, what the kid’s name?” Clint asked after shooting an arrow in the middle of one of iron legion’s training dummies.

“None of your business,” Tony tried to keep calm and focus on destroying the dummies without damaging the cardboard civilians. It was hard when half of the team wouldn’t stop asking about his kid.

“A bit of an unusual name, but who am I to judge another parent.”

“Can we please focus on the task at hand?” Rhodey sounded exasperated.

“Easy for you to say, Rhodey. You’ve probably known Stark Jr. since he was born.”

Tony almost collided face first with one of the dummies in shock.

“Wait, what? He is not my son!”

“Yeah, right.”

Tony could hear Clint and Wanda chuckle in disbelief, but what really made him stop was Rhodey’s snort.

“Et Tu, Honeybear?”

During the training session, more questions were asked, but Tony managed to ignore them all. This was not the first time someone had said that the duo seemed like father and son. Rhodey, Happy, and May had teased them about it multiple times. A couple of SI employees had even thought that he was introducing them to his son the time that they had to use the company lab. However, hearing the Rogues talk about it made him extremely uncomfortable. Before, he would have no trouble with this, but since the fight, he loathed to be vulnerable with them, and nothing made him more vulnerable than the kid.

With the training session over, Tony, Rhodey, and Vision all went to his private floor. Vision phased out of the elevator just seconds before the doors opened and sat down on the living room couch. Rolling their eyes, Tony and Rhodey followed.

“It is my understanding that Mr. Parker’s identity is to remain a secret from our fellow teammates. Since the original plan of keeping his existence hidden is no longer in effect, what is our cover story?”

“It’s what I told the others, the kid is my intern. That’s it.” Tony answered, getting angry at the reminder of his current problem.

“Yes, but that is not currently a believable story, as evidenced by the training this morning. You are not known for your proximity to children or for wanting to mentor young minds. We need to come up with a plausible reason for why and how this happened.”

Tony clenched his fist at the implication that he isn’t mentor material. He was trying his best, okay? 

Realizing the emotional state of his friend, Rhodey intervened.

“How do you propose we do this, Vision?”

“Mr. Stark found Mr. Parker through his hero alter-ego, utilizing internet videos. I have been told that the best lies are those with some truth to them.” Vision stops talking and looks into the air for a couple of seconds. “From what I can find, five months before the conflict in Germany, Mr. Parker won a science competition at his educational institution. The students made an amateur news report about it, featuring both Mr. Parker and his creation. Since Stark Industries does not hire high school students, Mr. Stark could have overcome that barrier by hiring Mr. Parker as his personal intern. This seems like a plausible explanation for the two of them to have become close enough that an Intern would spend their weekends in this private facility.”

Tony and Rhodey stared at Vision with their eyebrows raised for a couple of seconds.

“Wow. You really thought this through, huh?” Stark said, surprised.

“Me and Mr. Parker might not be as close as the two of you, but I still consider him a friend.” If it was possible for a synthezoid to be embarrassed, Vision certainly was.

Tony chuckled and shook his head. This kid really could crawl into anyone’s heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys liked this one! Honestly, i forgot vision existed for a while, so i felt the need to give him a bit of a highlight this chapter. Please leave comments!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm done with finals, so I have more free time now. I could try to post every week OR continue posting every other week, but with longer chapters. What do you guys prefer? Lemme know in the comments

Tony gasps, his hand over his chest and his eyes wide with betrayal.

“How could you do this? I thought we were friends!”

“It’s not personal, Tony,” Rhodey shrugs, “Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.”

“Gentleman,” Vision says, sounding exasperated, “However entertaining this argument might be, I believe it is Mr. Hogan’s turn.”

“It was supposed to be my turn, but SOMEONE,” Tony said, glaring at Rhodey, “used a block card.”

“There’s no friendships in UNO, Tones.” Rhodey sounded unrepentant.

Peter stayed quiet while the adults argued. He had two +4 cards and one to change colors. While they were busy fighting amongst themselves, they would never notice him. He would laugh manically if he could, but part of his plan was to go unnoticed.

“Why do y’all keep going back to red? Got to be kidding me…” Happy was getting more cards from the deck, trying to find one he could use.

“Probably because you made it clear that you don’t have any, Mr. Hogan. It is my understanding of this game that the goal is to decrease one’s own cards while increasing the ones belonging to the competition.”

“Yeah, yeah. I get it, Vision.” He grumbled in response.

In the end, Peter did win the game, but just barely. Turns out Vision also had some pretty good cards, but then Happy flipped the order of the game, and Rhodey hit Vis with a block just when he was about to put down his last card.

After raising his arms in victory and doing a very ridiculous performance of “We are the champions,” Peter suggested that they grab some pizza before the movie. Once a month, all five of them would get together to play some games and have a movie night. They rotated who would choose the movie, and since it was Happy’s turn, they would have to watch Downton Abbey. It wasn’t technically a movie, but they just let it slide.

“I am not sure if I understand,” Vision said, probably for the third time already “If Lady Mary must marry Mattew to be able to keep living in Downton Abbey, why does she dislike him so? Wouldn’t a marriage between them be mutually beneficial?”

Mr. Stark sighed tiredly, and Happy looked like he was about to pop a vessel. Peter was probably the only one not annoyed at the synthezoid’s questions.

“Well, yeah. But she doesn’t like him, so even if it would be beneficial, she doesn’t want to be with him for the rest of her life.”

“It was my understanding that marriages of convenience were more common than love marriages at that time. Why does she even dislike him? He has not treated her poorly.”

Before Peter could answer, Mr. Stark interrupted them with a loud groan.

“Jesus Christ. I don’t know what’s worst, this boring show or this conversation.”

Happy, Peter, and Vision all looked offended, though probably for different reasons.

“At least this is better than that depressing Disney movie…” Rhodey interjected.

“Hey!” said Peter “Coco was great.”

“Kid, you were bawling by the end of the movie.”

It was true. The previous movie night was Peter’s turn to choose a movie, so he chose Coco since MJ had recommended it to him a couple of days before. This meant that Tony had to hold him while the kid sobbed, and even Happy was looking a little teary. Vision was really interested in the concept of an after-life, and after that movie spent a long time talking to a still sniffling Peter about it.

“Will you guys shut up? I’m trying to watch the show.”

Vision agreed to ask Peter his questions later, and they all settled in to watch rich people’s drama. In the end, the only ones who didn’t fall asleep in the middle of the episode were Vision and Happy.

*

“So, do you think the kid is a new discovery or was Tony around since his birth?” Clint asked around a mouth full of popcorn. Most of the avengers, with the exception of Stark and Rhodes, were sitting around the common room.

“Vision, you have been around here the longest. What do you know?” Sam pointed out.

The synthezoid didn’t even raise his eyes from his book to answer.

“Mr. Stark has had that young man as his intern for a couple of years now. As you all know since this is the third time that I tell you this.”

“Vis, don’t take this the wrong way,” Wanda said, sitting next to him, “but none of us actually believe you.”

“If and when Tony wants to tell us about him, he will. Speculating will get us nowhere. Especially if we hope to be a team again. He has made it pretty clear that he doesn’t want us to know about the boy.” Natasha interrupted, looking angry.

They were all quiet for a couple of moments until Steve looks up and asks:

“Do you think the boy is Pepper’s?”

Natasha groans and gets up, walking to the kitchen.

“Nah. They weren’t together long enough for that. Also, considering the kid’s age, I don’t think Pepper even worked for Tony at the time of the conception.” Clint argues.

Before anyone else can put forward another hypothesis for who the mother might be, the elevator’s door opens, and Stark walks out. He is speaking with someone on the phone, and, considering his serious face, it’s probably work-related. He walks to the kitchen, and holding his phone with his shoulder pressed against his ear, he starts to make coffee.

“I need a couple of weeks to get everything ready, but early April should be good enough. My lawyers have drafted up a contract, but I still haven’t had a chance to look it over.” He stays quiet while the other person is presumably speaking. He starts looking for a mug until Nat passes him one. He mouths a thank you before continuing his conversation. “How many people are you planning on bringing? Wow, okay. That’s more than I thought. You guys are welcome to stay in the compound if you want.”

At this, everyone else looks surprised. Even though the compound is property of Stark industries, it is used exclusively for Avengers’ related business. None of them have any idea why Stark would invite someone to stay there.

“You can stay in the same rooms as before, and I can clear out some extra ones for your security.” Everyone’s surprise doubles at finding out that this is apparently not the first time that this has happened. “Are you bringing the princess? Well, just letting you know that this time you are the one paying for the repairs on whatever she and Peter break. No, I’m not being dramatic.” He says, rolling his eyes dramatically “Those two are an absolute menace together. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Okay, I’ll let the kid know that you are bringing his partner in crime. See you in a couple of weeks.”

Tony hangs up and takes a sip of his coffee. He immediately makes a face as it burns his mouth, then shrugs and proceeds to drink the rest.

“So,” Sam starts. “Since when do your business partners stay over in the compound?”

“Well, they haven’t built an embassy in New York yet, so for safety reasons, me, T’Challa, and the government agreed that this is the best place for them to stay when they need to come over.”

“Wait, King T’Challa of Wakanda?” Steve asks.

“You know any other T’Challas, Rogers?” Tony’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

“I heard there was talk of them opening up the country. Is that why he is coming here?” Clint asks.

“In part. Wakanda is trying to participate more in international trade and politics, so T’Challa is coming to sign some contracts with Stark Industries, and they have a meeting with the UN.”

An awkward silence fell across the room. Lately, every time the whole team would get together, a stifling and uncomfortable silence would settle. Sometimes the silence concealed poorly masked anger at each other, while other times, it was just a consequence of the heroes not knowing how to act around each other after all that happened.

“See you all in the next training session, I guess,” Tony said before getting into the elevator and leaving. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys like it! Next chapter we will have shuri and Peter as besties, plus the avengers will find out more about the mystery kid.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick warning, Peter has a nightmare and then mentions a panic attack, it's not super graphic but take care.

“So,” Clint said, walking into Natasha’s kitchen while she made some tea, “Peter, huh?”

She turned to face him and, instead of answering, just raised an eyebrow and took a sip of her drink.

“Come on, you can’t tell me you didn’t piece it together. A friend of a young super-genius with enough access to the compound to be able to be a ‘menace’ around the same time that our genius teammate appears with a mystery child? Peter is Tony’s son.”

Natasha’s face remained impassive. She drank a little more of her tea, put it on the counter, and leaned forward on her elbows, getting closer to Clint.

“Clint, remember when you introduced me to Cooper and Laura?” He nodded, a little confused. “You made me promise that I would never tell anyone about them. During our SHIELD days, and after it fell, and when we joined the Avengers, no matter what happened, I never told a living soul about your family. I respected your wish for privacy and secrecy. What makes you think I won’t afford Tony the same respect? ”

“Nat, that’s not what I…”

“I know, Clint.” She interrupted him, raising her hand to stop him. “I know you don’t mean it to be invasive. I remember your reaction when you found out that Scott has a daughter. You just want to bond with other heroes with kids, or whatever, but you have to let Tony decide when he is ready for that. We all did what we thought was right, but in the end, we still left him alone in Avengers tower. Tony doesn’t forgive that easy.”

Clint nodded, looking thoughtful. In his eagerness to get things back to the way they were, he forgot that just pretending that nothing had changed wouldn’t actually fix anything. He had hoped that joking around and teasing like they used to might make it feel as if Germany hadn’t happened, but not respecting the man’s boundaries could make the situation even worse. If he wanted to know about the kid and Tony, he would just have to make sure that they knew he was there to talk.

*

It was three in the morning on a Wednesday, and Peter was sitting on the floor of his bedroom with music blasting through his headphones. He knew that would mean that school would be hell, and he would probably fall asleep in the middle of class again, but he couldn’t go back to sleep. After he came back from patrol a little before midnight, he jumped into bed, barely taking the time to take his suit off and promptly fell asleep.

His dream started off very normally, he was in school talking to MJ and Ned and discovering that he forgot they had a history test that day. An average anxiety dream. He was sitting in the classroom trying to take the test when the walls start shaking, he got confused about the apparent earthquake that no one else seems to notice. He is about to ask someone if they know why the walls are shaking when cracks start appearing in them and the ceiling. Before he even has a chance to scream, everything falls on top of him.

He can’t breathe, and his ribs are being crushed, and he tries desperately to scream for help, but every one of his classmates are sitting around the pile of rubble on top of him, taking the test as if nothing is wrong. He doesn’t know if they are ignoring him or just can’t notice his pain, and he doesn’t even know which option is worse. He doesn’t get an opportunity to choose because when he looks around again, he is no longer in the classroom. The pile of debris was still on top of him, but now he was in an alley. A part of Peter recognized this alley, and what that meant, but his mind felt muddled with the dream, so it was still a surprise when Uncle Ben appeared and was shot. He tried so hard to go help him, to stop the robber, but the weight on his chest stopped him from moving.

He woke sweating and hyperventilating. The nightmares were not a new development, but that still didn’t make things any easier. He knew from experience that he would not be able to go back to sleep, so he was just sat down, trying to calm down from the panic attack brought on by the dream. He was midway through the second listening of his favourite album when his phone buzzed with a message. He looked down and saw that Shuri had texted him.

_Guess who is going to America, buibui?!_ And then she added a string of nonsensical but vaguely celebratory emojis.

He smiled at the prospect of seeing his friend in person for the first time in several months.

**That’s great, Shuri!**

_What the hell are you doing up? Isn’t it 3 in the morning over there?_

He panicked for a second. He didn’t want her to know that he had a nightmare.

**Why are you texting me if you didn’t want me to answer?**

_Don’t deflect. I thought you would answer when you woke up, obviously. Why aren’t you asleep? It’s a Wednesday._

He was trying to come up with a plausible excuse when she texted him again.

_You had another nightmare, didn’t you?_

Apparently, his silence was answer enough, because a couple of moments after she texted his phone buzzed with a call.

“How you doing, buibui?”

Taking a deep breath, Peter tried to sound as put together as possible and not like he had spent the last half an hour staring at the wall listening to the same songs on repeat at a truly ungodly time of the day.

“I’m good! Really, Shuri. No reason to worry.” Peter mentally high-fived himself. You couldn’t even hear that he had been freaking out.

“You are literally the worst liar ever. I have lost all faith in the intellect of American teenagers based solely on the fact that you still, somehow, have a secret identity.” Sarcasm dripped from her words, and he could almost see her eyes rolling.

“Shuddup.” He grumbled

“You really need to tell someone. I’m great, I know, but I live in another continent, and I’m not, you know, a professional. Tell May or Stark.”

“What? No, I can’t do that.” Peter had to be careful to not wake Aunt May, so he continued more quietly. “May already has too much on her plate, and if I tell her about the nightmares, she will want me to stop Spider-manning!”

“Then tell Stark! You basically live with the man anyway. Not to mention he probably has experience with this.”

“I can’t! He has his own problems, he doesn’t need me dragging him into my mess. He is Iron Man. Also, it’s just nightmares. I can deal.”

“Yeah, this 3 A.M. call really has ‘I can deal’ vibes. You are right.”

He sighed and rubbed his face with his free hand.

“Can we talk about something else? Please?”

“Sure, Peter. But this conversation is far from over.”

They talked for two hours. He helped Shuri brainstorm new ideas for inventions, they laughed about a vine compilation Shuri had sent him the day before, and she told him about a prank she had pulled on her brother. Around five, they had to say goodbye because she had to go back to work, so Peter took a quick nap before getting ready for school.

He was right, school was hell. Three separate teachers called him out for falling asleep in class, and he was reasonably sure that MJ’s notebook of people in crisis had 3 new pages dedicated just to him after the colossal failure that was this morning. And worst of all, when Flash started a chant of Penis Parker during lunch, his sleep deprivation and emotional hangover meant that he couldn’t hide he felt all that well, so his bullies and most of the school saw him tear up before he left to have a breakdown in the bathroom. He couldn’t wait for that day to be over.

*

“…and then Ned and MJ went into this surprisingly heated debate over whether or not the Jedis were the good guys, and for a second I thought I would have to break up an actual fistfight between the two of them, but then MJ just nodded and said ‘y’ know what, loser? You’re right’ and then left. We thought she was really mad, but turns out she was just messing with us.” Peter was gesticulating wildly while telling Happy this story.

It was Friday, and they were in the compound going to meet with Mr. Stark. Happy had stopped listening to the kid ramble 20 minutes ago, but he still nodded and occasionally hummed in agreement. It was basically the same thing he did to Tony when the man decided to tell him in way too much detail about his new inventions. They were on the ground floor, walking towards the elevator when they heard the sound of glass breaking. Happy’s phone buzzed with an alert of a possible security breach. It was a low-level alarm, so the Avengers probably wouldn’t even be alerted, but he still had to go check it out.

“Stay here, kid. I’ll go see what it is.”

“Wait! I can help.”

“No way. Stay here, and don’t move!”

“But I…”

“I’m serious. Don’t make me call May.”

Peter crossed his arms and was silently grumpy for a little bit while Happy walked away and then yelled after him:

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with how close you and my aunt are, Happy!”

“Damn, Hogan is putting the moves on your aunt?”

Peter jumped up in surprise and squeaked. While he was distracted, Hawkeye walked behind him. He was dressed as if he had just come back from training, sweatpants and a purple t-shirt, with a bow slung around his shoulder.

“Hey, I’m Clint. We met a couple of weeks ago.”

“Uhm, yeah, I remember. I’m Peter.”

“Tony told us that you intern with him” Peter didn’t really know how to respond, so he just stood there looking awkward and nodded. “What are you doing here on the ground floor? Shouldn’t you be in the lab with Stark?”

“I’m on my way there now.”

“How are you liking working with Stark?”

Peter opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, they heard a loud crash from down the hall. Peter jumped into a defensive position, and Clint got in front of him to shield him from any possible attacks. No intruders or attackers appeared, though, just Happy grumbling something about incompetent workers.

“Hey, kid, everything was fine, it was just a very stupid accident with the janitorial staff. ” Happy looked up and immediately frowned “What are you doing here, Barton?”

Clint eased off his fighting stance and glanced back at Peter to see if he was okay, only to see that the kid was also in a defensive position.

“Good form, kid. Let me know if you ever want me to teach you some moves.” Clint looked back at Happy, who seemed to be getting angry at him. “I was just coming back from training, Hogan. See you guys later.”

They stood silently, watching Hawkeye leave. Happy then looked Peter over to check for any injuries. Satisfied, he started walking towards the elevator again. Peter followed, looking slightly stunned.

“Did Hawkeye just compliment my fighting form?”

“Of course he did. I taught you self defence.”

“Actually, Mr. Rhodes also…”

“Shush. I taught you. How is a famous former boxer?”

Peter laughed

“Sure, if you say so.”

They went down to the labs and, after saying a quick goodbye to Happy, Peter ran to Mr. Stark and wrapped his arms around the older man. After Tony chuckled and patted his head, they went to work on their own projects. Tony was trying to make improvements on the energy storage of the arc reactor, while Peter was doing his assignment for robotics class. He insisted on doing it by himself, no matter how many times Mr. Stark tried to convince him to take an arc reactor and make a mini Iron Man.

“How was your week, Underoos?”

Peter thought about what Shuri had said, and for a second, considered telling his mentor about the nightmares, panic attacks and how, on Wednesday, all those things had accumulated to the point where he cried in school, and now some of his classmates were calling him “cry baby.” He disregarded that idea when he looked at Mr. Stark’s desk and saw all the things the man had to do for his work at the most innovative company in the world, and remembered that this was the man that had survived a kidnapping and torture, fighting aliens, falling through a wormhole, destroying an evil AI and his army of robots and many more. Mr. Stark had more than enough problems without Peter whining to him about his teenage angst.

“It was cool. Ned and I are talking about getting together to build his new lego Millennium Falcon next week.”

“Yeah? And what about that friend of yours? TJ or something.”

Peter proceeded to tell the man about most of his week and what he, Ned and MJ got up to, making sure to brush past any mentions about the kids making fun of him at school or his increase in anxiety.

He could deal with it. No reason to drag anyone else down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a writing tumblr now, so feel free to check it out!   
> https://www.tumblr.com/blog/carlinthewriter


	10. Chapter 10

Peter’s internship with Mr. Stark on Tuesday and Thursday usually happens on Stark tower, mainly because it is closer to Peter’s school, but lately also because Mr. Stark is still not comfortable around some of the Avengers. Which was why it was a surprise that, on Tuesday, while Peter was making a new batch of web fluid and screaming along to his favourite singer’s new album, Vision phased from the floor right behind him.

“Hello, Peter”

Peter screamed and on reflex chucked whatever was on his hand at the intruder. Thankfully he was just holding a glass rod to stir the chemicals, and it simply broke against Vision’s head without hurting him.

“I was under the impression that your extra sense prevented you from being surprised like this.” Vision commented, with his head tilted to the side in confusion.

Peter was trying to catch his breath and his hand was against his chest, but he still answered: “My spidey sense only alerts me to danger. Since you’re not a danger to me, it wouldn’t let me know you are there. Which is why I asked you _not to do that._ ”

At least Vision had the decency to apologize and look contrite, which is more than Mr. Stark or Mr. Rhodes ever did when they happened to catch Peter unaware.

“How can I help, Vis? Mr. Stark just left for a quick meeting but he should be back in 20 minutes.”

“It was actually you that I wanted to talk to. You see, I need advice on a human matter.”

“Okaay…” Peter said hesitantly “But if it’s about Downton Abbey I really can’t help you much. I fell asleep before that episode was over.”

“Actually, what I’m looking for is advice on romantic matters.”

If Peter was taking a drink right now he would probably have spit it all out in an extremely dramatic fashion, like in cartoons. As it were, the only way to demonstrate his surprise was by staring blankly at the synthezoid and blinking as if waiting for his brain to reboot.

“This is definitely not where I thought this was going. Are you sure you don’t want to ask Mr. Stark? I’m sure he would have much more useful advice than a high schooler whose entire love life consists of asking the daughter of a villain to the homecoming ball.”

“I fear that Stark would be far too amused to be able to provide any useful information.” At Peter’s confused frown, Vision elaborated “He would make fun of me.”

“That’s fair. So, how can I help?” 

“Before the conflict with the accords, Wanda and I got closer, and I hoped that she would be interested in reciprocating my romantic feelings, but I fear that the disagreement we had about the accords has erased any possibilities of that happening. How do I know if that is the case, and is it possible to bridge our relationship once more?”

“Wow, I was right. I really am not equipped for this situation.” Seeing Vision’s disappointed face, he continued, “But, if I were you, I guess I would just talk to her. Tell her how you feel, and see how it goes from there. Maybe she will be okay with it, maybe she will want to take things slow for a while or maybe she will say no. You can’t really know without asking her.”

“Thank you, I appreciate your help.” He said, and looking deep in thought, proceeded to phase right through the floor once more.

“The door is right there…” Peter shook his head in amusement.

“Talking to yourself, kiddo?” Tony walked into the lab and saw Peter standing next to broken glass and staring at the floor. He had managed to end the meeting a bit early so he almost ran back to the lab to spend the rest of the day with the kid.

“What? No, Vision was just here. We were talking about human things.”

“I hope you know you sound like an alien when you talk like that.” Peter chuckled and bent down to clean the glass from the floor. They enjoyed a comfortable silence in each other’s presence for a bit. Peter, having finished his work with the web fluid, was helping the older man with repairs on his suit.

“Hey! I don’t know if I told you this, but King T’Challa and his entourage are coming over next week to sign a contract with Stark Industries and some documents with the UN. So your friend is coming to visit. Please try not to blow anything up this time.”

Tony tried to look stern but seeing the way that Peter’s eye lit up and his arms flapped in happiness would be worth all the explosions and destruction that two teenage geniuses could manage.

“Shuri told me she was coming, but I didn’t know it would be so soon! Do you think I could show her around Queens this time? Last time she wasn’t here for long enough.”

“You can ask, but the Dora Milage would probably have to go with you guys. I don’t see them letting the princess walk around unsupervised in a foreign country.”

“That reminds me, do you think we could program Karen to understand memes? Shuri gave that suggestion when she told me she programmed Griot to play ‘uhm whatcha say’ whenever King T’Challa tripped.”

Realizing that the individual responsible for the technology of one of the most advanced countries in the world would spend an entire week in the compound, and potentially have access to his inventions, he shuddered thinking of the mess the two teenagers might get up to. Peter is a nice kid, but he loves pulling pranks.

“Kid, I’m letting you know in advance, if any of you hellions even think about touching FRIDAY’s code, there will be hell to pay.” He used the wrench in his hand to point threateningly at Peter’s face, but his goal of intimidation missed the mark quite considerably since the boy just burst into laughter.

“I make no promises.” 

“Jesus, young people these days… Absolutely no respect.” Tony bent over his armour to try to hide his amusement. Peter wasn’t fooled, however, and proceeded to laugh even more.

*

“That was better than last time, guys. We still need to communicate better, though. Rhodes, you need to warn the team before you deploy explosives, Lang was too close to the blast for comfort. Romanoff, you were getting overwhelmed by the bots and you did not ask for backup, if Barton hadn’t noticed it, you could have gotten hurt.”

Tony was counting the seconds to be able to leave this stupid mandatory training session and had stopped listening. Rogers was in front of all of them reviewing everything that happened, just like he did every time. Part of him felt tempted to remind him that he was no longer the leader of the Avengers and still, technically, a criminal, but he was too tired to start shit up. All he wanted was for the clock to hit five o’clock so he could go back to his floor and pretend he wasn’t living in the same building as Rogers anymore.

“… and Wanda, you need to keep closer attention to your surroundings. That’s all, everyone.” With a barely concealed sigh of relief, Tony got up, but before he could leave, he heard Roger’s voice. “Tony, can I speak with you in private?”

Tony stared longingly at the door, wondering if it was worth it to just walk away as if he hadn’t heard him, but decided against it and just raised his eyebrow to Rogers while everyone else left. The captain looked uncomfortably around the room, waiting for them to be alone. This was the first time the two of them were alone together since the argument in Bucharest.

“I have things to do, Captain. Spit it out.”

“Listen, Tony, I’m not trying to start a fight, but I need to know. Who is the kid that has been hanging around the compound?” Tony was absolutely furious. He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Steve continued. “Don’t just tell me he is your intern. You’ve never taken interest in teaching and certainly not to someone so young. Even if he was just an intern, why would he spend time in the compound, when all Stark Industries related things happen at the tower?”

“It’s none of your business, Rogers. We are not friends, we are barely even teammates, I don’t owe you anything. ”

“The team was destroyed last time because of secrets. We need to be open with one another if we want this to work!”

Tony really had to use all of his self-control not to punch him in the face right there. His heart was thudding against his chest, but probably for the first time since Rogers set foot in the compound he didn’t feel even a little bit of fear or anxiety, all of that had now been replaced by anger.

“‘Secrets’ didn’t destroy the team, Rogers. You did. The minute things started to go even a little bit against what you wanted you decided to fuck off and do things your own way. The accords weren’t perfect, but instead of helping negotiate and improve them, you decided to just go to Siberia with your friend, without bothering to try to explain things. ” Tony got progressively angrier the longer he spoke, pointing his finger at the captain’s chest. “And don’t you dare act like whatever I don’t tell you about some random kid is even close to what you did. You knew who was responsible for my mother’s death, and not only did you hide it from me, you tried to lie.”

“Come on, Tony. That’s not fair.”

“Listen to me very carefully, Rogers. You come even close to the kid and I won’t hesitate to plummet you to the ground. And this time, I won’t hold back.”

Tony turned around and left the room. The anger and adrenaline allowed him to reach his bedroom, but as soon as the door closed, he knelt down on the floor and proceeded to have a panic attack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked this one! Please leave a comment!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, hope you like this chapter!

Peter was pressing the buttons on the side of the fidget cube that Mr. Stark had gifted him with enough strength and speed that would have broken any other toy. He was in history class and could not hear a single word that the teacher was saying over the ever-present anxiety that had been filling him since the previous day. 

Everything started when he was on patrol. He was swinging around after having given directions to a group of German tourists when his spidey sense warned him of trouble. Usually, it felt like a pressure on his skull that let him know that he needed to duck or that someone was about to pull out a weapon, but this time, it felt like a light itch. It wasn’t strong enough for him to feel the need to get into a fighting position, but it was present enough that he felt like he needed to keep his guard up all the time. It was exhausting. 

He tried to ignore it and focus on patrolling, but it made fighting harder since any warnings about the fight got mixed up with the itch. After defeating three criminals by the skin of his teeth, he decided to just give up and go home. The constant thrumming of his sixth-sense was starting to give him a headache, so sleep was hard to come by and, even when he did manage to fall asleep, it wasn’t particularly restful. 

The next day started off normal enough, to the point where Peter was beginning to think that the previous day was just some weird fluke and that his spidey sense was back to normal. However, on the bus on his way to school, it started acting up again and it hadn’t stopped since. 

So there he was, sitting in class trying desperately to pay attention to his teacher while his head felt like it was about to explode and his anxiety was making his heartbeat so fast, he was surprised none of his classmates could hear it. 

“Psssh! Peter, are you okay?” Ned whispered from behind him. 

He couldn’t quite muster the energy to properly respond, so he just nodded. When the period ended, and the bell rang, all the sounds of his classmates moving around and chatting grated against his already sensitive senses. Even his fidget cube wasn’t helping him calm down. He was about to put it in his bag and go to the biology lab when he felt someone grab it and move it away. 

“What’s this, cry baby? A toy?” Flash tossed it into the air a couple of times. 

Typically, his spidey sense would have warned him of this, and he would have been able to discreetly stop it, but now with it going on without a break, he didn’t even notice the warning. On any other day, he would be too concerned with revealing his secret identity to try to fight back against Flash, but today he was just too tired and too anxious to care, so he simply grabbed his gift and walked out of the classroom without looking back. 

“Hey, Peter. What’s going on? You are acting weird.” Ned asked once more, catching up with him in the hallway. 

It must have been the noise making his headache worse, because when a group of parents touring the school walked past them, his skull felt like it would burst open. Instead of trying to explain to Ned what was going on, he tapped his friend’s arm three times, a code they had developed for when he was dangerously close to a meltdown. 

The confusion in Ned’s face was replaced by a determined look, and grabbing his elbow, he guided Peter out of the building. The pain only got worse, and what was a light itch yesterday, was now his spidey sense screaming at him, even though no danger was visible. 

“There is something wrong! There’s something wrong with my senses!” He gasped out. Ned’s hand was holding him tightly, betraying his friend’s panic and concern. 

He could hear the sound of thrusters getting closer, and he worried that an attack might be happening, and he should go help Mr. Stark and the Avengers. Those thoughts were all dispelled when he saw an Iron Man suit land right in front of him. 

The suit opened, and Mr. Stark climbed out faster than he had ever seen the man move before. He passed his hand through Peter’s head in what would have looked like a friendly hair ruffle but was, in fact, him checking the kid for head injuries. He passed his hands through the kid’s arms and ribs, checking for any broken bones or swelling the same way he had done thousands of times before. He found nothing wrong, but this time that discovery did nothing to calm him down since Peter was still gasping from pain and clutching his head. 

“What happened?!” 

“ I don’t know! He seemed on edge all day today, and then it just got worse. He tapped me to let me know that he needed to leave and said something about there being something wrong with his senses, but this looks nothing like any of his sensory overloads!” Ned answered for him. 

“You did good, kid. I got it from here.” Mr. Stark got inside his suit, picked Peter up and turned the thrusters on. The last thing Peter thought before falling unconscious is that flying away must be really therapeutic since it made his spidey sense calm down considerably. 

*

Tony was in the middle of a meeting with investors when he received a text. Thinking it must be urgent since he had given FRIDAY instructions to not disturb him unless in case of emergency during his meetings, he ignored the investors’ offended huffs and checked his phone. 

He had two text messages from Peter’s nerdy friend, Ned. 

**Mr. Stark peter is acting really weird i think hes sick i’m taking him outside pls help**

**Its ned btw**

Not even stopping to explain himself, Tony rushed out of the meeting room and put on the earpiece that connected him to FRIDAY. 

“Activate Protocol Baby in Trouble” 

He went to the nearest balcony, and in less than ten seconds, a suit had reached him. FRIDAY had already put in the coordinates to Peter’s phone, giving him plenty of time to panic over what was wrong with his kid. Maybe he had been poisoned? What if yesterday, on patrol, he got hurt and didn’t tell anybody, and now he is bleeding internally, or maybe someone had drugged him? Only the adrenaline of the situation was stopping him from having a panic attack. 

He reached the school and saw the two teens huddled near the grass. The kid looked absolutely terrible. His skin was pale and clammy, and his face was contorted in pain. He quickly checked him for injuries and asked Ned what happened before flying away. His panic only increased when Peter blacked out barely two seconds after they left the ground. 

He flew as fast as he dared with a passenger in the direction of the compound. 

“FRIDAY, warn the medical team that I’m on my way and text Cho. Let May know what happened, and that Happy will pick her up from the hospital as soon as her shift is over and then let Happy know that he needs to do that. Have you finished scanning, Peter?” 

“Alright, Boss. I have just finished my scans. I cannot detect any broken bones, fever or signs of infection. The medical scanners in the compound will give me more information.” 

“Good work, girl.” 

He looked down at Peter in his arms. This was not the first time he flew the kid in a hurry to the med bay, but it is the first time that he has no idea what was going on. Usually, Peter would be the one to call him for help, not his friend, and very rarely was he too out of it to tell him what happened. He asked FRIDAY to verify the footage of yesterday’s patrol from the Baby Monitor Protocol, but she wasn’t able to find anything. 

“You’re going to be okay, kid. I got you.” 

A group of doctors and nurses were waiting for him on the front doors of the compound when he landed. In the corner of his eye, he could see some of the team members, but he paid them no mind. He laid the kid down on the stretcher as gently as possible, and after leaving his suit and ordering FRIDAY to take it back, he ran after the doctors to the med bay. They asked him questions about what had happened, but he didn’t know it either. After losing his patience and screaming at them to “just fix him, dammit!” they made him wait outside. 

Sitting in an uncomfortable chair in the waiting room, with his head in his hands after listening to Dr. Cho tell him that they didn’t know what had happened to cause this, that Peter seemed fine, just showing some signs of exhaustion, he was reasonably sure that his day could not get worse. He was immediately proven wrong by his phone ringing. 

“I told you, FRIDAY. No disturbances.” He signed. 

“It’s Ms. Potts, sir.” 

For a couple of seconds, he contemplated just not answering the phone, but he knew it would only make things harder later. 

“What on earth do you think you are doing? You can’t just fly away from investors’ meetings, no matter how boring you may find them! T’Challa is landing on US soil in two days, and you needed to pitch the contract to investors! Where are you right now?” He knew Pepper was furious at having to fix one of his screw-ups, but after the emotional roller coaster of seeing his kid faint in his arms, he could not muster up the energy to feel guilty about it at the moment. 

“I’m in the compound. The med bay.” 

Immediately all of Pepper’s anger vanished from her voice. 

“What happened? Are you okay?” 

“It’s not me. It’s Peter.” 

Pepper was quiet for a bit before saying: 

“Take all the time you need, I’ll deal with the investors. And Tony? I hope he gets well soon.” 

“Thanks, Pep.” 

He had barely hung up the phone when Rhodey burst through the door. He looked as though he had run all the way to the med bay, with sweat covering his face and his leg braces making that weird sound they made whenever they were overused. Tony really needed to fix that. 

“What the hell happened? Peter is brought to the med bay on a stretcher, and I have to find out about it from Clint?!” 

“Believe it or not, Rhodey, I had bigger concerns than calling you when my kid fucking faints in the middle of his school’s parking lot!” He screams back at his friend, losing his patience for the second time in only 20 minutes. 

Rhodes takes a deep breath and sits down next to Tony. He puts his hand on his shoulder and squeezes, trying to ground and calm him. 

“I’m sorry. Can you tell me what happened, or do you need a break?” 

“I don’t even know what it was. The kid is supposed to be fine. I’ve watched yesterday’s footage, and he was a bit slower than normal and got hit a couple of times, but nothing to warrant _this._ His friend had to text me in the middle of their school day to tell me there was something wrong, and he just faints when I get there.” 

“I’m sure everything is going to be fine. The kid is a fighter.” 

“Boss, Peter has woken up. I have already notified Dr. Cho.” 

Both men rushed to the room. Peter is sitting up in his bed, looking around, seemingly embarrassed. Noticing the two men, Peter smiles sheepishly and gives a little wave. 

“Hey, Mr. Stark. You didn’t have to bring me to the med bay. It’s not that serious.” 

“Not that serious?! You fainted! And if I remember things correctly, you were grabbing your head and crying about pain right before that.” 

Realizing that his friend was about to lose control for the third time today, but this time he would definitely regret it, Rhodey intervened. 

“What happened, Pete? Walk me through it from the beginning.” 

“Well, yesterday, I got this weird tingly feeling.” 

“You mean your danger sense?” Tony interrupted. 

“Spidey sense, yes. It was less intense than usual, could barely even feel it. It was weird cause there was no danger for it to be triggered, so I sort of just ignored it. I guess having it go on non-stop gave me a headache, so I wasn’t fighting as well as usual, and it was harder for me to sleep. It stopped for a while and only came back when I was on my way to school, and that’s when I felt a little under the weather, and I guess Ned called you?”

“But what about the fainting? What caused that?” 

“I don’t think that is the relevant problem here.” Dr. Cho said from the corner of the room. She must have come in while Tony and Rhodey were interrogating Peter. “If I understand your ability correctly, it warns and prepares your body for danger, so you get a boost in adrenaline, your heart beats faster, your breathing speeds up, you get the picture. Constantly receiving these alerts and getting ready for a flight or fight situation would be very tiring for your body. I believe your fainting spell was just a crash in consequence to that. The real question is, what has been causing your body to react like that.” 

Cho quickly realized that her explanation seemed to only make Peter more nervous. The idea of his power that, before served to keep him safe, and now seemingly was hurting him must be terrifying for the kid. 

“I want to keep you here in the compound for observation for a couple of days, but you don’t have to stay here in the med bay. Why don’t the three of you go to the gym? I heard there’s a new climbing wall there. When your aunt gets here, I’ll talk to her and arrange things with your school.” 

Tony opened his mouth to protest letting the kid out but was immediately silenced by a glare from the doctor. She discreetly nodded her head towards Peter, who was fidgeting and looking anxious. Understanding the need to distract the kid, Tony got up. 

“Come on, kid. Thanks to you, I managed to get out of some super boring meetings, so let’s put this to good use. T’Challa will be getting here soon, and I’m curious if you could fight the Dora Milaje, so how about some practice?” 

They end up spending two hours in the gym. Peter and Tony spar while Rhodey gives advice and corrects Peter’s form. It works to get Peter’s mind off his spidey sense problem, especially since it hasn’t gone off since Mr. Stark picked him up. When they leave the gym, they are immediately greeted by Happy and Aunt May, the latter one running and hugging Peter as soon as she sees him, while the former tries to hide how concerned he was. 

Per Dr. Cho’s instructions, Peter will stay in the compound for the next couple of days, but since May couldn’t get time off of work, she will have to go back to Queens the following morning. As soon as May finishes fussing over her nephew, she gives Tony a quick hug. 

“Thank you for taking care of my baby.” She whispers. 

Clearing his throat to hide how uncomfortable he was, Tony nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shuri will show up next chapter and we'll try to figure out what is going on with Peter! Please leave a comment and kudos, they are great motivation!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoy it! Shuri is finally here!

Rhodey, Tony and Peter were all standing in the grass in front of the compound waiting for the Wakandan aircraft to land. The kid was jumping on the balls of his feet and flapping his arms, and, although he hid all external signs of it, Tony was just as happy. Peter hadn’t had any problems with his danger sense since he was put in observation by Cho, which was a huge relief for Tony, and the man was glad that Peter no longer felt the need to hide or tone down his displays of happiness in front of him. 

The ship landed silently less than ten meters away from them and its hangar door opened. Tony didn’t even have time to say anything before someone runs from the ship and tackles Peter in a hug. They hug each other fiercely before Shuri moves away and punches Peter on the shoulder. 

“Why haven’t you been answering my texts?” 

“Sorry! It has been a crazy couple of days.” 

“Humpf. You better catch me up on everything then.” 

*

“Looks like the Wakandans have landed,” Sam said from his seat in front of the windows from the common room. Most of the team, with the exception of the ones in the landing pad, Vision, and Wanda, were sitting around making light conversation. 

“Isn’t that the secret kid you all won’t shut up about?” Scott pointed to the brown-haired boy that was just tackled into a bear hug by one of the visitors. 

“Looks like it.” 

They all watched people slowly step out of the Wakandan aircraft and be greeted by Rhodes, Stark, and his kid. After King T’Challa stepped onto the grass they all assumed that it was finished and turned back to go passively watch some tv, when Sam said: 

“Wait, isn’t that…?” 

Steve turned around to see Bucky get out of the ship and look around. He noticed the immediate stiffness of Stark’s posture and felt ice run through his veins. Shit, this was just like Siberia. He sprinted out of the common room, grabbing his shield on the way. He could hear Natasha calling his name, but he didn’t stop. He had to get to Bucky before Stark. He had to protect Bucky. 

He bursts through the compound doors, skidding through the grass. He makes a turn and looks at the group standing. He expected Tony to already be wearing a suit and ready to attack Bucky, but they are standing in front of each other calmly. The boy was the first to notice his presence and was standing protectively in front of Tony. Noticing the kid’s behaviour, the rest turned around. After an awkward silence, T’Challa stepped up and greeted him.

“Captain Rogers, it is good to see you.” 

“You too, Your Majesty” 

After some polite greetings from the rest of the visitors, Bucky stepped up and enveloped him in a hug. While no one had mentioned his hasty arrival or the presence of his shield, one look at Stark’s icy stare proved that it had not gone unnoticed. 

“This has been fun, but T’Challa, if you will please follow me? I’d like to go over some details about vibranium exports with you. Come on, you two” He nodded to the boy and the princess, “I don’t trust you alone in my home.” 

Although the girl laughed, the boy remained serious, levelling a glare at Steve before following Tony. 

*

“But have you had any other episodes since then?” Shuri asked with furrowed eyebrows. 

“Not really. I mean my spidey sense did go off just right now with Captain America, but that was because He came charging in.” Those words instantly made the room tenser, with Mr. Stark opening and closing his fist, and King T’Challa’s expression closing off. 

Shuri raised her wrist and, with a few clicks to her kimoyo beads, a hologram of what looked like computer code floated in front of her. She moved her fingers around the image quite quickly and, in less than a minute, she had Peter’s medical files. 

“I can’t see anything out of place in these scans, but considering how primitive the equipment is, I’m surprised I can see anything at all. Maybe I...” 

“Did you just hack into my systems?” Tony asked, not really sure if he should be upset or impressed. 

“As I was saying,” she eyed Tony as if he had just done something incredibly rude “Maybe you should come to Wakanda so I can analyze you better.” 

“Hey! You can’t just steal my intern.” 

“Shuri, I’m sure Stark has all the equipment he needs and will ask for help if he deems it necessary.” 

“But, brother!” 

“I can’t go to Wakanda! I have finals. Also, there is nothing wrong. It was probably just a fluke or something.” 

No one seemed particularly convinced by this argument, but the subject was dropped. The Wakandans and Stark went to one of the conference rooms to discuss accommodations, and, deeming it all very boring, Shuri and Peter went to his room to catch up. 

“I imagine you must be loving this. Got out of going to school AND hanging out with your hero fam is basically your version of heaven, after all.” 

“Mr. Stark was acting like I was made of glass for a while, but other than that it has been kind of awesome. If it wasn’t for May’s job I’d want to stay here forever.” Peter hides his face behind his palms and grunts in frustration, “I really don’t want to go back to school. They will never leave me alone after they saw me running from class freaking out. They already call me cry baby...” 

He immediately regrets telling Shuri about that when he notices the concerned furrow of her eyebrows. 

“Why do they call you that?” 

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” He mumbles, refusing to look her in the eye. 

“Why don’t you ask Stark to show up at your school? For some reason, you Americans seem crazy about him. That would probably make you the coolest kid in school!” 

Peter is so shocked by Shuri’s idea, that he falls from the ceiling, where he was sitting this entire time. 

“Are you nuts? I can’t ask him to do that! For one thing, he is a super busy man with more important things to do than just show up at random high school” 

“That’s debatable. I’ve seen some of the useless and ridiculous robots that man has created, and in my opinion, he has  _ too much  _ free time.” 

Peter glares at her for the interruption and continues as if it hadn’t happened. 

“AND, he can’t know about any of this school stuff. He only knows the Spider-man and sciency side of me, he can’t know that I’m a loser in school!” 

“Pete, you know Tony would never think you are a loser,” Peter is pressing his knuckles against each other to avoid Shuri’s pitying gaze. “And he would probably drop by in the middle of your history lecture in an Iron man suit if you asked him.” 

“Well, I won’t. Can we talk about something else?” 

Understanding that he has reached his limit and that pushing would do more harm than good, Shuri starts rambling about her plans for their stay in New York. She talks about all the touristy things she wants to do and asks Peter about his favourite pizza places in town. They end up talking for almost an hour about all they want to do together. Shuri wants to watch Wicked on Broadway, Peter wants to show her around his neighbourhood, and they both agree that the Empire State Building is kind of boring, so they could pass on that. 

“Do you think you could take me swinging around town? That would probably be way faster than the subway. Also, I’ve heard they have huge rats down there!” 

“That sounds like a safety hazard. Both the rats and the swinging around. I don’t think it would make negotiations with your brother any easier if my intern broke your neck.” Tony says, leaning against Peter’s door. Shuri grumbles about him being a buzzkill, but he pretends to not hear her “Kid, Dr. Cho said you are good to go home in a couple of days, but you should keep an eye on that danger sense of yours.” 

Tony’s heart breaks a little when his kid tries to hide the dejected look he got when Tony said he would go back to Queens. He probably made the same face when Cho told him Peter should go back to his school to keep a sense of normalcy. This past couple of days he got to pretend that they were a real family, but now that was over. He forcefully shoved the idea of convincing the kid to be homeschooled in the compound away. Peter deserved to be a normal teenager. 

“Let’s go. We all have to participate in this dinner with the Avengers and a couple of government officials, and if I have to deal with that awkwardness, so do you.” 

It was as awkward as Tony had said it would be. Probably not for everyone else, but for Peter and Tony sitting in front of Rogers trying to act as if they weren’t upset about the morning’s proceedings was deeply uncomfortable.

*

“I don’t feel good about this.” Happy says for the tenth time that morning. 

“You are not making this any easier, Hap,” Tony says staring at his coffee and getting angry at himself for wishing it was something stronger. 

“Well, are we really supposed to just let the kid back out there when we don’t even know what made his brain go crazy in the first place? What if he got radiation poisoning from the spider bite?!” 

“Radiation? Where did you get that from?” Rhodey looks up from the newspaper he is reading for the first time since this conversation started. 

“The kid got his powers from a radioactive spider!” 

“No, he got it from a  _ genetically engineered spider _ .” 

“I’m pretty sure it was radioactive.” 

“For fuck’s sake,” Tony slams his palm against the table “It doesn’t matter. Cho said we should let things carry on as if nothing is wrong and just keep an eye out for any abnormalities. Let’s trust the doctor. The only thing this conversation is accomplishing is making me go slowly insane.” 

“Sorry, boss” Happy looked a bit ashamed but mostly sympathetic. If there is one thing the three men in that room  _ could  _ agree on, it was their worry for Peter. 

On the other side of New York, Peter’s day was about to be ruined. He had retained his good mood throughout the drive to Queens. He had decided to ignore the fact that he would have to face Flash and his buddies, and just focus on his plans with Shuri and his first patrol in three days. He got home, hugged May, put on his suit and swung out of his bedroom window. He had been out for less than five minutes when it happened. A tingling in the back of his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in a couple of different universes, the spider that gives spider-man his powers is either genetically engineered or radioactive, so I wanted to make a little joke about that. Lemme know what you think about the chapter!


	13. Chapter 13

“You have got to be kidding me!” Peter couldn’t help but shout in frustration. A random passerby seemed alarmed by the noise, so, a bit embarrassed, Spider-man waved then swung away. 

Everyone had just calmed down about the school incident, May had barely stopped texting him asking how he was feeling every ten minutes and now the annoying feeling was back. Now that he wasn’t sleep deprived or having a sensory overload, the spidey sense was more of an annoyance than anything else. He decided to wait until it got worse before telling anyone. Yeah, yeah, Doctor Cho was pretty adamant that he communicate all his symptoms, but Dr. Cho didn’t have to deal with 4 different overprotective adults. 

Trying to ignore his sixth sense, Peter crawled up a building to better scan his surroundings. Luckily, criminals had seemingly decided to take it easy today, because other than a five years old child lost in Cunningham Park, there wasn’t much for spider-man to do. A couple of times he turned around thinking someone had been following him, but he couldn’t see anything and neither did Karen, so he assumed that the spidey sense was messing with his head. Wrapping up his patrol a couple of hours early, Peter swung home. 

When he opened the window, Karen’s voice sounded through the speakers in the mask. 

“Peter, you have three messages from Shuri, would you like me to read them to you?” 

“Yes, please!” 

“Message one, ‘Sup, buibui? Guess who’s got some tickets for a Broadway show?’; message two, ‘It’s me, in case you didn’t guess it’; message three, ‘Long story short, you now have plans for Friday. No bailing on me! I have drones and know where you live.’” 

With a chuckle, Peter thanked Karen and removed his mask. 

“Aunt May? I’m back!” He shouted from the hallway, midway through slipping on a t-shirt. He stepped into the living room and was about to call out to her again when his spidey sense screamed at him to look out the window. He jumped over the couch in his haste to get a closer look expecting anything from a killer drone to another supervillain but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Mrs. Frank was watering her flowers on the window still, a guy with a goatee had apparently moved into the apartment above and Mr. Louis was sitting on the fire escape having a cigar. He looked around once more, but there was nothing there.

The unreliability of his senses was starting to deeply unnerve him. His spidey sense was what allowed him to feel safe out there. Before the spider bite, he was constantly afraid. He was bullied in school, his parents had died, and, although his aunt and uncle tried to hide it from him, he knew how hard it was for them to make ends meet. The spider bite gave him special healing, super strength and agility, but what really made him stop being so damn scared all the time was the spidey sense. There was no need to be anxious since his body would let him know when danger was nearby. Now things were worse than ever, because not only was he unable to see the danger, he felt like there was something lurking right in the corner of his eye just waiting to strike all the damn time. He felt exhausted. 

“Hi, honey! You’re back early.” May said from the kitchen door. 

Plastering a smile on his face, Peter turned around. All he had to do now was act like everything was fine. It would be okay, he had plenty of practice doing that for years. 

*

“Sir, Ms. Romanov is requesting entrance to your lab.” Friday’s voice interrupted his work. 

He looked around but couldn’t see among his half-made armours and tools a reasonable excuse to say no. Natasha was the former teammate that was trying the hardest to rebuild their relationship, so he felt like he should at least give her a chance. 

“Alright, Fri. Initiate protocol Spider Under the Rug and then unlock the door.” Every single piece of evidence of Spider-man’s equipment or Peter’s work was hidden by closing down part of the lab and then the Black Widow opened his door. 

“What can I do for you?” Tony asked, trying his hardest not sound as stiff as he felt. 

“Is the kid around?” 

All pretenses of trying to appear casual vanished the second Peter was mentioned. Maybe he was still on edge with everything that was happening with the kid, or maybe he still didn’t trust Natasha all that much, but his expression closed off and he was gripping a screwdriver so hard that his knuckles had turned white. Seeing his reaction, Natasha raised her hands as if to say she meant no harm and went on. 

“I’m only asking because we all saw the kid be wheeled in the compound on a stretcher and then he stuck around during school days this week, and he usually only spends the weekend. I wanted to know if everything was alright.” 

Tony took a deep breath, counted to ten the way that Dr. Heath insisted he should, and decided to trust his teammate a little. 

“He felt sick at school so I picked him up. He is fine now.” 

She nodded, seemingly satisfied with that answer, then turned around to leave. Before he could think too much about it, he stopped her by calling out her name. 

“Thanks for asking.” 

“We’re still teammates, Tony. Regardless of what happened, we’re all here for you.” She gave him a small smile and left. 

He didn’t know how to feel about that, so he decided to just push it aside and go back to fixing the defective shielding on his armour. 

*

Sometimes Peter really hated being right. Going back to school was as terrible as he thought it would be. Apparently, after he left the school someone started a rumour that his meltdown had been caused by him having declared his feelings to Ned and then being brutally rejected, and although Ned leaped to his defence every time someone said it, no one seemed to care about the truth. Flash’s taunting got even worse, and now more people joined in calling him a crybaby. Mr. Smith, the history teacher, was sick and the substitute teacher, a black-haired man Peter thought he had seen around before, didn’t seem to care about anything, so the teasing continued throughout his class. That was not the worst part of going to school, no, the worst part was his spidey sense. The second he stepped foot inside the school it had increased in intensity and had not stopped since. 

As soon as the bell rang he grabbed his backpack and ran out the doors. He was enjoying the quick reprieve that the fresh air had given him from his spidey sense, so he didn’t even notice someone approach him and punch him in the shoulder. 

Standing in the edge of the parking lot waiting for him next to a bunch of parents, were Shuri and two of the Dora Milaje. They were probably trying to look inconspicuous since the warriors were wearing wigs and western clothes, but their regal posture and the way they scanned everyone on the street looking for threats made them incredibly noticeable. 

“Brother said I could come hang out with you today since there will only be boring meetings with the UN. Wanna show me around?” 

Peter was about to answer when he was interrupted by the person that was quickly becoming the one he hated most in the whole world. And considering how he fought supervillains on the regular, that was no small thing. 

“Who is that, Penis Parker? Your girlfriend? Does Ned know you moved on from him so fast?” 

Shuri’s expression that had been gleeful and relaxed before closed off and she glared at Flash. One of the Dora Milaje put her hand on her shoulder, either to calm the princess down or to stop her from attacking a random American boy. 

“Based on the cheap personality and elementary level insults, I’m guessing you are Flash?” Before he could answer the clearly rhetorical question, she continued “Look, I get that Peter’s superior intellect makes you feel insecure and reminds you of all your many failings as a human being, but have you considered that therapy might be a more productive way to feel better about yourself?” 

“Listen here, you…” 

“Come on, Shuri. He is not worth it.” Peter interrupted him before he could say something that would end with him at the business end of a vibranium spear. Despite his interruption, the warrior women could see that their princess was going to be insulted, and were harder to convince to leave, but eventually, they followed the two teens out of school grounds. 

Peter spent the rest of the day showing the three visitors the place he grew up in. He took them to Delmar’s (Shuri loved the sandwich), they went to the Socrates' Sculpture Park, which Ayo, one of the Dora Milaje, thought was interesting and they finished the day at the Hall of Science. 

Peter deflected all of Shuri’s questions about his defective Spidey sense, but he doubted that the girl would let this go. Oh well, that was a problem for Future Peter.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is one day late! My computer is acting up. Hope you like it!

“So, are we going to talk about it?” Shuri said around a spoonful of ice cream. After they left the Hall of Science, the four of them went back to Peter’s apartment. While the two warriors had some tea and talked with Aunt May, Peter and Shuri were stuffing their faces with ice cream on his bedroom floor. 

“There’s nothing to talk about, Shuri. Flash is a jerk, but he’s harmless. I have spider-powers, remember?” 

“Last time I checked, your powers don’t protect you from the emotional damage that bullying is causing. And if he really is harmless and not a big deal, then why can’t Stark and your aunt know about it?” 

Peter sighed, tired of having this conversation for the millionth time already. Shuri just didn’t get it. 

“Shuri, there are kids in my school with  _ actual  _ problems, folks with abusive parents or living in foster homes, John from chemistry has a parent with cancer. Outside of my school, there are people who have it even worse, people living in war zones, starving or dying. May is a nurse, she helps those people, Mr. Stark sees folks that are even worse. And you want me to go there and tell them that I’m upset because a kid called me names? Then I’d really be a cry baby.” 

Shuri was quiet for a bit, eating her ice cream with a thoughtful expression. 

“I think that what you can’t understand is that even problems that come from a place of privilege are still problems. Suffering is not a competition, and just because there is someone out there who has it worse, that doesn’t mean that you don’t deserve help. I don’t think you are a cry baby, and I’m sure Mr. Stark and your aunt agree with me. Just think about it.” 

Peter stares at his ice cream bowl for a while before nodding. He can think about it, but he knows that he probably won’t say anything. The last thing he wants is to be a burden to his loved ones. 

*

“The board of directors has approved the new measures, but Mark from PR says he needs to talk to you as soon as possible. Dr. Shapiro and Dr. Wang from R&D are having some problems with the engine for the StarkCar, and the board of investors doesn’t want to postpone the launch date again, so could you take a look? And I think that’s everything you missed.” Pepper said, looking away from her tablet. 

“Do I have to talk to PR? They always make me do some stupid photoshoot or interview.” 

“Yes, Tony. You do.” She sighed “ How is Peter doing, by the way?” She asked with a sympathetic smile. 

For the first time since their meeting started, Tony sat up straight and looked even remotely interested. Pepper was well aware of how close he was to the boy. 

“He left the compound three days ago and so far hasn’t had any symptoms, so Dr. Cho thinks it was caused by anxiety or stress. Probably nothing to worry about. He is coming here tomorrow for the internship. I’ll have him take a look at the engine for the StarkCar.”

“I’m glad that everything is okay.” Pepper smiled. 

With all the official business finished, an awkward and tense silence filled the room. 

“How are things with the Avengers?” Pepper tried to break the ice. 

Tony considered activating the fire alarm to escape the question. Since that would result in the evacuation of a ninety-three story building and probably result in the loss of thousands of dollars in interrupted work time, he decided to be an adult about his problems. He shrugged, made an excuse about needing to attend a meeting, and fled the situation. He had barely left Pepper’s office when he bumped into the second person he was desperately trying to avoid in this building. Mark from PR. 

“Hello, Mr. Stark. If you could please accompany me to my office, there are some things I’d like to discuss with you.” 

“Mark, buddy, I’d love to, but right now, I’m swamped with meetings, so can we postpone this? Don’t worry, I’ll definitely call you when I’m available.” Tony said with a fake smile, walking away before he had even finished speaking. 

“I’m sorry, sir, but Ms. Potts assured me that you would be free now and she told me to not let you get away,” Mark said, not looking apologetic at all despite his words. 

Tony blew out the air from his lungs in exasperation and followed his employee to an office room. Better to get this over with quickly then. 

“As I’m sure you are aware, sir, the information regarding the re-formation of the Avengers will be made public in a week, and I feel it is important for us to stay ahead of the rumours and backlash. The initial separation had quite a divisive effect on the public, and I fear that both sides will have complaints about the situation.” 

Tony nodded along as a thirty-year-old with a bachelor’s degree in communications told him what he has known since he was sixteen and showing up in the cover of tabloids. No matter what he did, everyone would hate him for it. 

“We feel it is best to try to avoid mentioning things that will remind the public of what caused the split in the first place, so mentions of their home arrest and prior status as criminals should be avoided at all costs. Ideally, we want to frame this as heroes moving forward and staying together for a better and safer world. I have scheduled some interviews for the team, and I’d like for us to do a photoshoot or maybe a video of the team working together with...” 

“What?” Tony interrupted. His voice was calm and emotionless, but the fury in his eyes betrayed how he actually felt. Mark fumbled around for a bit, trying to figure out how to say what he needed without getting fired or punched by Iron Man.

“Well, sir, we want to make sure that public opinion is in our favour. Not that long ago, they were watching their heroes fight in Europe. Now we need to make sure that what they see is a unified and ultimately friendly group of people working together to keep the world safe. We need to show the people that things are okay with the Avengers.” 

“And where are we going to find this ‘unified and friendly group of heroes?’ that you mentioned?” Tony’s voice remained calm, but his eyes got progressively more clouded by anger. 

“Uhm, Sir…?” 

“Cause it sure as hell isn’t the Avengers. Unified?” Tony scoffed. “We tried to kill each other not that long ago, and the only reason those people are living under my roof is that the security council left me no choice. We are not teammates; we’re not even real heroes! We are just a group of freaks that someone tied together and decided to point in the direction of the world’s problems. We are a fucking time bomb.” He was breathing hard and cradling his left wrist by the time he finished. 

Mark was opening and closing his mouth, trying to figure out what to say, but it didn’t matter. His boss had left the room. 

*

“Bye, May! See ya later!” Peter yelled from the door, getting ready to leave for school. He was late again, so at the same time that he tied his shoes, he shoved a bagel in his mouth. 

“Don’t forget that I have a sixteen-hour shift today, so feel free to spend the night at the tower if Tony says it’s okay!” 

Peter tried to say “Okay, I will!”, but since he had a mouth full of bagel, all that came out was “Ofay va vil”. Peter ran out the door, hoping that he wouldn’t miss the bus. He hadn’t been able to sleep, because at some point during the night his spidey sense had started tingling and hadn’t stopped since. He really needed to tell someone about it, because if he collapsed at school again Mr. Stark would be so mad. 

He had just turned the block and was a couple dozen feet from the bus stop when he saw his bus drive away. He ran and yelled for the driver to wait for him, but they either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. He stopped next to an alleyway when he realized that he had been left behind and tried to think of what to do next. It was hard with the headache blooming at the back of his head. Maybe if he took the subway and… 

He had no time to react to the warning his senses gave him, and he felt something collide with his temple hard before everything went black. 

  
  


“Argh, what happened?” Peter’s head was killing him. Had he hit his head during patrol again? May was going to kill him if that was the case. 

Then he heard a voice coming from behind him. 

“Hello, spider-man.” 

*

Tony felt ready to commit murder. He was absolutely furious. How could someone mess up his coffee order? It’s not like he had asked for something particularly complicated, but alas, now he, if he wants his daily dose of caffeine, is going to have to chug down this overly sweet sewage water. 

Tony can admit that most of his anger is not actually about the coffee. He is just pissed because since his talk with Mark from PR more people have approached him about doing interviews with his teammates. He would rather eat his own hand then sit down with a journalist pretending to like his teammates. Not to mention, he was already in a bad mood before all that happened because of the awkward meeting with Pepper. Working with an ex is not fun. 

At least today was a Peter day. Working with the kid on the engine would be a great distraction. He also wanted to know how the fidget toy was working for him, maybe he could start production of a Stark Industries fidget toys line. Peter would probably have some nice ideas for products. Maybe he could set up a meeting with the head of the sales department. 

Tony walked into the Tower’s lobby. He could tell that the receptionist was a new hire since she stared at him with a starstruck gaze. Most people that worked in the tower lost that look after a while. With a quick nod as a greeting, he walks past the receptionist and enters the elevator. 

“Penthouse, FRI.” 

He needs to get some snacks ready. The kid refuses to eat an adequate portion at school since he thinks that might raise suspicion, so he is always starving by the time he gets to the tower. After setting aside some sandwiches, he gets down to the lab to organize their workstation a little. By the time that he finishes getting everything ready, there is still an hour to go before the kid gets here, so he starts answering some emails to pass the time. 

He can’t stop the bouncing of his leg when he notices that Pete is five minutes late. The kid probably got distracted talking to his friend or something. When twenty minutes pass, he is trying to tell himself traffic is probably just bad today, but his anxiety is picking up. After ten more minutes pass, he is ready to hop on a suit and go see what the hold up is himself when Happy bursts through the door of the lab. 

“Boss, Peter is missing” 

The man continues speaking, but Tony can’t hear him. There is a sharp pain in his chest and then everything goes black. 


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, TW for panic attacks. They are not graphic at all, but better safe than sorry. Also, I'm sorry this is late. Things have been messy at the moment and I'll be moving countries for a couple of months, so some chapter might take a little bit longer to be posted. I'll try to keep them coming regularly though!

Tony opened his eyes to Happy’s face five inches away from his own. Startled, he made a noise and tried to pull himself away, but his movements were sluggish and his head was pounding. What had happened? Had he tripped and hit his head?

“Tony! You need to keep it together, the kid needs us!” 

And that’s when he remembered. Peter was missing. He pushed himself off the ground, he must have fallen at some point. His breathing was still hard and he was struggling to keep at least some semblance of calm. He could freak out later, now he needed more information. Tony took a deep breath and looked at his Head of Security. 

“Tell me everything. Now!” 

Happy didn’t even bother to feel offended by his boss’s rude behaviour. All either of them cared about right now was finding the kid. 

“Peter left his apartment this morning to go to school, but as far as we know he never made it. During the third period, the school secretary called May to ask about it, and May gave some cover story, assuming something Spider-Man related had happened. She tried calling him several times, and when he didn’t pick up she pulled up the tracking on his phone. She found it lying around on the street, no sign of Peter. That’s when she called me.” 

The Boss was pacing around the lab muttering under his breath while Happy recounted all they knew at the moment. He stopped in front of one of his work tables and pushed everything to the ground. Thinking Tony was having some kind of breakdown, he went up to hold the man back when he noticed that he had not done it in anger or frustration, he was just clearing up space. Kicking some things that had fallen near his feet away so he wouldn’t trip, he spoke up. 

“FRIDAY, pull up a map of Queens. Mark down the kid’s apartment and the time he left it and the kid’s school when they noticed him missing.” He turned around to face Happy, “How does the kid get to school? Does he have a routine?” 

“Uhm, I think he takes the bus half-way then hops on the subway. I’m not sure about the lines that he takes, though. Want me to contact the Aunt?” 

“Do that. FRIDAY, I want you to access the MTA’s security cameras. Start running facial recognition. First look for Peter, I also want a secondary program looking for any criminals that have a known aversion to either Spider-Man or myself and if that doesn’t pan out broaden the search for any criminal affiliations.” Tony didn’t bother looking away from the hologram, but he could hear the door of the lab opening and closing as Happy went to call May Parker.

Tony needed to focus. They needed to establish a timeline, when and where had the kid disappeared? The motive for someone to kidnap Peter also had to be analyzed. Had been kidnapped as Peter Parker or Spider-Man? Could someone be doing this to get back to him somehow? Maybe they were hoping for some ransom. That would probably be one of the best-case scenarios since the kid would have to be kept alive. Or maybe it was just someone with a vendetta. Someone upset with Spider-Man had figured out his secret identity and wanted payback. Or one of his enemies decided to attack him through his loved ones. What if they hurt Peter? What if it was his fault? Fuck, it was his fault! He never should have gotten involved. When will he learn that everything he touches he poisons? 

“I can’t do this alone,” He whispered, holding his head in his hands. “FRIDAY, call Rhodey and tell him he needs to get here this instant. Also, start the Blank Slate program. Starting now I don’t want to hear or see anything that doesn’t relate to Peter or finding him. Redirect all my calls.” 

“Alright, Boss. Colonel Rhodes is on his way right now. ETA fifteen minutes.” 

Tony wanted to do more. He wanted to hop into his suit and start looking for his kid himself. He would check every single alley in this city if that was what it took, but he knew that wouldn’t help, it might even alert the kidnappers that he was unto them. God, he hated it so much, but right now the best thing to do was wait for more information. He had been planning on giving Peter a watch with a tracker and a panic button for his birthday, he should have done it sooner… If the kid died it would be his fault. 

“I have found no matches for Peter on the MTA’s cameras, Boss. It might be helpful to know what outfit he was wearing when he was last seen.” FRIDAY interrupted his self-flagellation. 

“Alright, keep analyzing the footage, girl.” 

“Also, Boss, Ms. Potts has been attempting to contact you since you cancelled all your meetings. Do you want to...” 

“Not now, FRIDAY! I’ll deal with that later.” 

A small notification appeared on the corner of his holographic map. Happy had sent Peter’s route to school. Without even having to be asked, FRIDAY marked his path on the map. He needed to know if his kid had been taken before he got into the bus. Even though FRIDAY didn’t identify him in any of the video footage, there was a chance the kid’s face simply hadn’t been visible. Actually, that gave him an idea.

“FRIDAY, start running gait analysis as well. Use any footage as we have of Peter here in the tower as a base marker.” 

“Alright, Boss. Colonel Rhodes is approaching the lab right now.” 

Tony’s head was starting to hurt. He had fainted because of a panic attack not even ten minutes ago and the stress only increased as more time passed and no news of the kid popped up. He knew that if the kid were here Peter would insist that he take a break, have something to eat and only come back to the situation once he was better. There was no way that was happening, though. The first 72 hours of a kidnapping were crucial and there was no way in hell that he would sit down and eat a cookie while his kid was in danger. The door to his lab opened and his best friend stepped in.

“What’s going on, Tones? FRIDAY wouldn’t tell me anything and Pepper...” 

“Peter’s gone,” Tony interrupted. 

“What? What the hell happened, man?” 

Tony caught Rhodey up as fast as he could, which wasn’t that quick, since his friend had to coach his breathing through panic attacks more than once. Rhodey wasn’t in a much better state than Tony, though. Tony and Peter were his family. Rhodey would kill for that kid, and now all he could do was sit on his ass and try to make sure his best friend didn’t set fire to the city, or worse, himself. 

“Boss, Ms. Potts is...” 

“I said not now, FRIDAY!” Tony yelled, throwing a screwdriver on the wall. 

“Hey, man. You need to keep it together. We can’t afford to lose our cool now.” Rhodey tried to calm him down, but before he was finished the door to the labs opened again. 

Pepper still had an override code from back when she and Tony were dating. When they were together she would mostly use it to stop him from locking himself in the lab for too long and force him to eat something. Since they broke up she thought it would be crossing a boundary to use her code, but he wasn’t picking up his phone and desperate situations require desperate measures. She entered the lab and the place was even messier than usual. What had Tony gotten himself into now? 

“What’s going on, Tony? You can’t just cancel all your meetings like that. The Wakandans...” Pepper thought she was going to be completely ignored since Tony had his back to her and was typing in a computer, but the second she mentioned the Wakandas he turned around and stared at her with wide eyes. 

“That’s it! FRIDAY, contact T’Challa and Shuri right now. Tell them to come to the tower.” 

Rhodey also seemed more alert now.

“You think they can help?” 

“Maybe. They definitely have more access to resources and I need another pair of eyes.” 

“Can someone tell me what the hell is going on? What does any of this have to do with T’Challa?” Pepper interrupted, tired of feeling invisible when there was clearly a crisis happening. 

Realizing that explaining the situation again would probably throw Tony into another panic attack, Rhodey intervened. 

“Why don’t we talk outside, Pep? I’ll fill you in.” 

*

“Have any of you guys seen Stark? I need to talk to him but his robot lady keeps telling me that he is unavailable.” Scott walked into the common room where the rest of the team was lounging around after lunch. 

“He is usually at the Tower right now. Maybe he is in a meeting or something?” Clint said, not even bothering to look away from the TV. 

“FRIDAY, can you tell us where Tony is?” Steve asked, looking up at the ceiling. 

“He is currently in his lab, Captain Rogers, but he is not to be disturbed.” 

Someone might have said something about him being too focused on building some new crazy armour, but they were all distracted by their guests from Wakanda quickly walking by towards the exits. 

“Do you want me to come? I might be able to help.” Bucky asked T’Challa. 

“No, no, you can stay. If we need you I’ll ask Stak to send a car. Don’t worry, White Wolf.” 

“Come on, Brother. We need to go, now!” It was the first time that the Avengers had seen the princess without a smile on her face. She was usually showing one of them some of her creations or playing a prank on her brother, but now she looked frazzled and in a hurry. 

“What’s going on guys?” Steve said. 

“Stark called for us. His intern is missing.” 

The Avengers might not be as close now as they once were, but even with all the fights and disagreements, they still cared about each other, so hearing that the child of one of them could be in danger made them all sit up alert. Clint looked especially shaken. As a father, he could imagine the worry and panic Tony was going through right now. 

“What can we do to help?” Clint asked, already standing up. 

“Nothing to do right now. You are still under house arrest. The last thing Stark needs right now is to deal with the council.” 

“Brother we need to go!” Shuri looked close to tears. T’Challa worried what would happen to his sister if her friend was hurt, but right now he couldn’t afford that thought. 

They left the compound before they could hear an argument break out amongst the Avengers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not really happy with this chapter, but oh well. Hope you like it and to make things interesting, the first person that guesses the name of who kidnapped Peter can give me a prompt and word count and I'll write you a fic!


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took forever! Real life kicked my ass. We are getting closer to the end. I think it should be over in 3 chapters.

“I said no. It’s a bad idea.” Nat is a trained spy, she had been taught to hide how she is feeling when she had barely learned to walk. But right now everyone in the room could see how angry she was. Whether that was because she actually wanted them to know of her rage, or simply because she was too angry to hold it back was unclear. 

“His child was freaking kidnapped, Nat! We can’t just stand by. What would you do if it was Lila? Or Cooper?” Clint had his bow in hand, ready to go fight at any minute. 

“You know I’d go help right away,” Clint smiled triumphantly, but Nat continued, “but you would have actually asked for my help. He wasn’t even the one to tell us about it! Our relationship is on shaky ground already without us stepping into his family matters, something he has been very clear that he doesn’t want.” 

“We don’t even know if he was kidnapped. All we know is that Stark can’t find him. He is a teenage boy, for all we know he snuck out and is at a party right now.” Sam pointed out. The last thing they needed was to end up back in the Raft because everyone overreacted about little Stark being gone for a few hours. 

“It’s the middle of the afternoon on a school day. What kid is going to parties right now?” 

“Stark can hack into the security cameras of the entire city and can access the GPS information on any electronic the kid would have on him. If he can’t find his son it’s because someone is working very hard to keep him hidden. Also, Cap, I’m pretty sure teenagers could find a party any time of the day.” Clint was tired of this discussion. They can’t just leave Tony to deal with this on his own. He had been partners with Natasha for almost a decade now, but he would go behind her back on this if he had to. 

“Are you all forgetting that T’Challa specifically told us to sit this one out? If we go and anyone finds out that we broke house arrest, not only will we be sent to the Raft  _ again _ , but Stark will have to answer to the council about letting us leave. That is,  _ if  _ we manage to leave. Who knows what technology Stark is using to make sure we stay put.” 

“But if we can help, isn’t it our duty to do so?”

The discussion was getting more heated by the second, with Clint and Steve saying they should leave, while Natasha and Sam argued that they should stay. Bucky had left for his room after T’Challa told him not to come and Wanda, who was currently somewhere in the compound, probably reading, would go with whatever the majority decided. So Nat had one shot at making sure her stupid teammates didn’t end up in prison or making Tony even more pissed. 

“You’ve been pretty quiet, Scott. Do you think we should sit this one out?” 

“Actually, I agree with Clint.” Everyone looked surprised to hear this. Scott was usually the first to tell them not to make a mess when it came to the accords. All he wanted was to stay out of the Raft and with Cassie. “If it was my little girl I’d want all the help I could get. We should go.”

Nat looked at each of her teammates and threw her arms up in frustration “Avengers Assemble, I guess.” 

*

Peter Parker can get out of a lot of problems. He has super strength, has trained with two superheroes and a former professional boxer, has an advanced intellect, and has spent most nights of the last two years patrolling the streets of Queens. So yeah, Peter can solve a lot of problems, but this was one that had him scrambling and panicking. Not the whole kidnapping thing, no. The second he opened his eyes and realized that he was not where he was supposed to be he was already working on a plan of escape. He and Mr. Stark had talked about this possibility before. No, the reason for his panic was someone having found out about his secret identity. 

“Hello, Spider-Man.” The man’s face was familiar, but Peter was too distracted by the man’s ridiculous outfit to place it. He was wearing leopard-print tight pants and a vest seemingly made using a lion’s mane. The costume managed to distract him from his panic for only a couple of seconds before he shook it off and tried to look as small and scared as possible. 

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about. My name is Peter and I’m just a student.” Peter was not a particularly good liar, he was awkward, anxious and bad at improvising. While those things made it pretty hard for him to come up with good excuses for why he was half-naked in an alleyway when he was changing after a patrol, they were great for making him look like a scared teenager, something that is incredibly useful if you don’t want people to find out you secretly moonlight as a vigilante. 

The costumed man did not look convinced. He simply smiled like Peter was a dumb child. 

“I’ve been following you for a month now, Spider-Man. A hunter must know his prey. Your legal name is Peter Benjamin Parker, you live with May Parker on 20 Ingram St, you go to Midtown Science and Technology High School and you visit the Avengers three times a week. I know  _ everything  _ about you.” 

Realizing that there was no secret identity to protect anymore, Peter used all of his strength to try to get out of the handcuffs restraining his arms against his back. He could hear the metal of the chair creaking, but it didn’t break.

“It’s always great to meet a fan, but if you wanted an autograph all you had to do was ask. No need to go through all this trouble.” 

“No point trying to break out of those cuffs. They were made to hold the Winter Soldier. It is also a waste of energy, they will open soon.” 

That made Peter pause. 

“You are just going to let me go? You kidnap me, tell me you’ve been stalking me and then you are just going to release me?” 

“It wouldn’t be a fair hunt otherwise. I am Kraven the Hunter, the greatest hunter that has ever existed. And you, Spider-Man, are the greatest beast I have ever seen. I am going to hunt you down, defeat you and hang your mask on my wall, proving once and for all that no other hunter will ever surpass me!” 

From what Mr. Stark had told him, villains would sometimes go on evil monologues. Peter always secretly thought the man was being dramatic, that that was just a stupid movie trope. Spider-Man mainly dealt with petty criminals and thieves, and even the Vulture, his only proper capital V Villain, was not that over the top. But the man in front of him seemed to have been plucked straight from a 90s shitty action flick. Honestly, the only thing missing was an evil laugh and a lair filled with skulls. 

“If you are going to open the restraints and then try to attack me, what’s stopping me from just walking out of the door? This place doesn’t look particularly secure.” It really didn’t. From what he could tell, it looked like an abandoned office building. There were some broken desks littered around the floor and something that looked like a fax machine in the corner. 

“Are you telling me you would walk away from a dangerous criminal that knows your secret identity? You couldn’t even walk away two teenagers making fun of a child three days ago.” 

Unfortunately, George the King of the Jungle was right. He couldn’t risk leaving and letting the man escape. No matter how little Peter wanted to indulge the man in his little game, his best shot at keeping his identity and Aunt safe right now was to incapacitate the man and find a way to call Mr. Stark so the man could be locked up, preferably without a way to tell anyone Peter’s secret. 

“So what, we are going to play tag in an empty office building? Seems simple enough. When are you going to take these cuffs off?” 

The man smiled and took a remote control from one of his pockets. 

“Now.” Peter barely had any time to think before the man pounced on him. 

*

Tony was currently on his fifth cup of coffee. He wasn’t tired enough to need so much caffeine, but the hot mug helped ground him and keep him focused. He couldn’t afford to have another panic attack. Shuri was in a corner of the lab trying to connect to Griot, their AI. He could analyze the security footage more thoroughly than FRIDAY and was currently compiling a list of all possible individuals and organizations based in New York that had the capability to take Peter. T’Challa and Rhodey were talking about sending some people to start looking on the streets where his phone was found. 

Tony, though? He was sitting with his coffee in his hands staring at FRIDAY’s map. He  _ wanted  _ to be doing something, anything really, to help but there was nothing. He was too inconspicuous to go look for Peter himself, and he was already using all of his resources to look for a sign of his kid, but right now there was nothing to do but wait. He was desperate for a glass of whisky, or a whole bottle really, and the only thing keeping him in his chair right now was the fear that they would get a location and he would be too inebriated to help. 

“Stark! I’m sending you a list of possible suspects that Griot compiled. You need to narrow it down.” 

Tony nodded, not having the energy to speak, and turned to the new hologram that popped up next to the map. 

_ No, he’s not discreet enough, we would have seen him on the cameras. I’ve seen his socks, he may be messed up, but he is a fan of spidey. If he had done it there would have been explosions, low-key is not his style.  _

Tony went like this for a long time. Unfortunately, New York was a hub for villains, mercenaries, and evil organizations. AIM, HYDRA, Scorpion, and dozens of others had plenty of motive to capture Spider-man, not to mention all of the ones that would be interested in kidnapping Peter Parker, his proximity to the kid was not as well a secret as he wished it was. 

Tony was too tired to have a panic attack, so instead, he felt the overwhelming urge to curl up on the floor and never get up. Before he could indulge in it, however, Shuri let out a scream of triumph. 

“Brother was wrong. This was a great gift.” Shuri smiled and continued typing furiously, ignoring the looks of confusion from the others in the room. 

“Did you find something, princess?” Rhodey asked. 

“When Peter and I first met in person I gave him a bracelet as a gift. Inside it, there is a bit of unprocessed vibranium. I was waiting for him to lose it so I could freak him out by telling him he lost a very expensive piece of metal. I didn’t actually want to leave vibranium just laying around in New York without a way to find it, though, so I developed an enhanced RIID to track down the specific radiation that vibranium emits. It actually ended up helping a lot in the mines. If we can assemble this RIID here and attach it to a couple of drones we could locate Peter’s bracelet, and hopefully Peter himself.” 

For the first time since Peter had been reported missing, all the occupants of the lab held their breaths not in dread or apprehension, but in excitement and hope. 

“Alright, princess” Tony said, “what do you need?”


End file.
